


What Goes Around (Comes Around)

by Isis



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, M/M, Multi, Non-Permanent Character Death, Nonlinear Narrative, Permanent Character Death, Polyamory, Warnings In Author's Notes, post-BLLB, timelines behaving badly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-18 09:16:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5921287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/pseuds/Isis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven years after waking Glendower and killing Gansey, Blue has made a life for herself with Adam and Ronan.  Then the doorbell rings, and her world tips on its axis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written before the publication of _The Raven King_ , which will joss everything. Consider it my own AU.
> 
> I've put warnings on a separate page because they are spoilers for this story, but if you'd rather know details about the deaths and relationships before reading, [this page gives details about the deaths, the relationships, and the sex scenes](http://isis.dreamwidth.org/2016/02/04/) in the story. Everything is under nested cut-tags so you can choose what aspects of the story you'd like more information about and remain unspoiled for the rest.
> 
> Big thanks to my beta-readers, ariadnes_string and flyingcarpet.

They were all at home that Friday evening when the doorbell rang. Outside, it was the crisp cold of early March, the sky deep purple and streaked with the red and gold remnants of the just-set sun. Inside, Ronan was cooking dinner, the smell of it wafting easily into the living room where Blue was sprawled on a sofa with her laptop. It smelled good, some kind of stir-fry that was probably going over rice. (It had surprised them both, when they had all moved in together: Blue that Ronan was actually a good cook, Ronan that Blue was willing to eat things that weren't yogurt. That was long ago, though, and now neither fact seemed the slightest bit remarkable.) Adam was upstairs, possibly checking his email or meditating or reading his Tarot cards. In any event, Blue was both the least busy person in the house, and the one closest to the door, so when the doorbell rang, she was the one who got up and swung it open.

It was Gansey.

She stared at him for a long moment. "You're dead," she finally said. "You've been dead for seven years." She closed the door between them, then leaned against it, gasping for breath, her heart racing. It felt as though all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. Abruptly she opened it again. He was still there, though she wouldn't have been surprised if he had vanished. "Don't go away. I have to tell the others."

"I will remain on this spot," he assured her, and she closed the door again.

"Ronan," she croaked, when she thought she had control of her voice. She could barely force the words through her throat, and her voice came out weak and thready. She should get Adam as well, she knew, but he wouldn't hear her feeble call, and the stairs seemed impossibly far away, unimaginably steep, unclimbable. She took a deep breath and tried again. "Ronan. Come here. Please."

"Hang on, gotta turn down the stove." Ronan stepped into the living room at the same time that Adam came racing down the stairs. "Who was at the door?" Then he caught sight of Adam, white-faced, lips set in a hard line, something clutched tightly in his hand. "What's wrong, babe?"

"It's Gansey," said Blue helplessly, and Adam held up the card in his hand, face out so they both could see: Death.

* * *

"Kiss him," said Adam. "Just like Sleeping Beauty."

Blue looked down at the tomb they'd uncovered deep in the cave, the sleeping king. Glendower, finally, on a thick stone slab, a carving of ravens at his head. Under the beard and the deep lines around his eyes, she thought he looked a little like Gansey. He wore a helmet with a gold band around it, and armor made of chain and plate, and he lay with his hands crossed over his breast, eyes closed. His chest did not rise and fall; he wasn't breathing. Maybe he was dead. She didn't want to kiss a corpse.

"What I mean is, you need to kiss Gansey," said Adam gently. "It's the same thing. That is," he added, frowning, "I think that's what you're supposed to do. The cards weren't totally clear on it. But I'm pretty sure."

"What, now?" A small frisson of alarm trickled down her spine. "But we just found him. Don't you want to – I don't know, celebrate?" _Before you die._

"We talked about this," Gansey reminded her. He took her hand and stroked her fingers. His skin was warm, his presence solid. "This is what I've been looking for. Waking him will be all the celebration I need." 

"But –"

"It's meant to be, Jane. I'm not afraid."

"Wait," said Noah. He'd been hanging back, near the mouth of the cave. He'd said over and over again that he wasn't comfortable underground, but he wouldn't let them leave him behind, and now he came forward to where the four of them stood. "Kiss me first. Please."

She nodded, and letting go of Gansey's hand she stepped close to Noah. His arms went around her, and she pressed her lips to his cold ones. No, she realized, they were cool, but they weren't cold. Not like they'd been before, that first time they'd kissed – her only other kiss – out in the yard at 300 Fox Way. He felt warm, alive, vibrant, and she wondered if he was pulling all that energy from her, or if it was Cabeswater doing it, the magical forest that surrounded them – and then he gave a sigh, and vanished.

"Noah?"

"Sorry," came his voice from the cave mouth, faint and wispy. She could see his vague outline in the shadows when she looked that way. "I don't like this place."

Blue didn't like it either. It was humid, with a sharp chill that cut through her clothes, and it smelled of decaying things. The stalactites – she thought that was what they were called, the ones that hung down from the roof – made a ragged ceiling, slimy water dripping from their tips, spattering their clothes with tiny droplets. There was a weird and unsettling hum in the air, like a buzzing just below the threshold of hearing.

"It's time," said Gansey, startling her. She'd been staring at a stalactite, lost in thought. He held out his arms to her. "Okay, I'm ready. Blue, kiss me."

It was like coming home, to slide into Gansey's arms, to tilt her face up to his, to breathe in the scent of mint. She felt she'd done this a hundred times. He held her close and she locked her hands around the back of his neck and their mouths touched softly and it was perfect.

Behind them, Ronan gave an ironic wolf-whistle, and Adam told him to shut up and pay attention to the cave, damn it. Blue tried to shut the noises they made out of her head. She was kissing Gansey, kissing him for the first and probably the last time, and she did not doubt the prophecies she had been told again and again. She had seen him in the churchyard on St. Mark's eve, ten months ago. He was her true love, and she was going to kill him. She'd tried to talk him out of it, and he'd refused to listen. She was going to enjoy it while she could.

His hands ranged across her back, one sliding to her tilted neck, one shaping the curve of her hip. She slid one of her hands to where she could unfasten one of his shirt buttons and slip her fingers in to touch his chest, and he gasped into her mouth, pressing the whole length of his body against hers. The hand on her neck moved to cup her chin, light fingers tracing lines on her jaw, brushing her hair away from her face. 

Blue's hand splayed across his chest. He was warm, so much warmer than Noah had ever been, and his heart beat in a fast rhythm that matched the blood pounding in her ears. Why couldn't this last forever? Why did it have to be the only time? She hoped Ronan and Adam were paying attention to the cave, damn it, or whatever it was Adam had said. This embrace felt so intimate that the thought of them watching was horribly embarrassing. 

"Blue," Gansey murmured against her lips. "Blue, if this is the last thing I do, I don't care, I'm happy."

"Shh." She sought his mouth again, let her eyes fall closed so she could concentrate on the feel of his lips against hers. They'd talked and they'd talked, all of them, before finally entering the cave. It was a waste of time to talk now, when they could be kissing. Vaguely she was aware of Adam and Ronan talking in low, urgent voices. She wondered how much time they had. 

Not much, as it turned out.

The low hum built until it broke through into a register she could hear, and then it got louder, and then louder still, swirling around them, grating in her ears. Ronan barked out a curse, and she opened her eyes. _The stalactites are crumbling_ , she thought; then Adam pushed her hard, yelling something about getting down, watching out, and she fell to the floor, and Adam covered her with his body. Ronan was on Gansey, flailing his arms as though fanning him. "It's not fucking working!" he shouted. "I can't change them!"

"Use the Epi-pen!" 

"I did! They're still coming! Fuck!"

The cave floor was damp and cold, wet mud seeping into her clothes. Something bit her on the back of her left hand. Then there was another bite, and a third, and then Adam muttered, "Sorry," and slapped at her hand.

"Ow!"

He pulled her hand under the cover of his body, and she saw the wasps. 

"Do it, Parrish!"

"I – I keep getting stung, I can't – " She saw him gulp. His mouth clamped down on his words, pursed like a toothless old man's. He looked terrified, his skin pale and grayish.

"Please," she whispered, though she wasn't sure what she was asking him for. He gulped again, and closed his eyes...

...and suddenly the air was filled not with wasps but with flowers. Petals sprinkled down on them from the roof of the cave. "Blue lily, lily blue," she said, remembering Gwenllian's song; that's what they were, lilies, pale blue like the midday sky. She wondered what time it was.

Adam opened his eyes slowly, wearily. "Sorry," he said again. He slid off her and lay on the cave floor, looking up at the falling petals, his breaths hard and ragged.

"Took your sweet time," said Ronan, and there was something harsh and angry in the way he spat out the words that made Blue turn to look at him. He was crouched beside a still and silent Gansey, his hand on Gansey's chest. "If you'd been doing your magic instead of feeling Blue up, he'd still be alive."

She shouldn't have been surprised. She'd been told all her life she'd kill him, after all. But still there was that unsettling feeling that there ought to have been a loophole. That something would have changed at the last moment, that the magic she'd felt while kissing Gansey would have blossomed into a protective halo around them both. How could he be dead? It was wrong. It was all wrong.

"I didn't," whispered Adam. "I tried."

"Are you happy now, Adam?" Ronan's face was shiny with anger and tears. "Is this what you wanted?"

Adam put his face in his hands. Blue couldn't hear him sobbing but she knew he was, knew it by the spasms in his shoulders, the short gasping breaths. 

"He was trying!" she snapped. "He was getting _stung!_ "

"He killed Gansey!"

" _I_ killed Gansey!" She'd kissed Gansey, and he'd died, just as she'd been told would happen all her life. She kissed her true love, and he died, and it didn't matter that he'd told her to kiss him, that in some way it had been connected to his search for Glendower, that they'd both agreed weeks ago, when they'd figured it out from the books, that this was the way it would have to be. 

A painful knot contracted in her chest; the heart was only a muscle, she knew, only the organ that sent blood through the body, but to her it felt like it was going to burst from grief, like in the stories. She'd die of a broken heart, and they'd bury her next to him. Well, probably the Ganseys wouldn't want someone like her in the same graveyard as their golden child, but she knew that Adam and Ronan would fight for her right to be buried next to the boy she loved, the boy she'd killed.

"He told you to kiss him. It's his fault." Ronan glared at Adam, who was slowly uncoiling himself and getting to his feet. 

"The wasps killed Gansey," he said dully. "Or fate. Or Glendower."

Glendower. She'd almost forgotten. "Is he awake?"

"I think you have to kiss _him_ , now."

"Why do I have to do all the kissing?" she demanded through her tears. She imagined her mother's voice: "So much _potential,_ Blue! The Page of Cups with a cup full of potential, that's what you are." Apparently her potential was stored in her lips. Potential to raise a king, potential to kill one. "I think I've done more than enough _kissing!_ "

"We have to see this through, Blue. You know that."

She did. She couldn't argue with Adam on that point. Sighing, she made her way to the slab where Glendower lay. 

Glendower didn't look quite as dead as he'd been when they'd entered the tomb. His color seemed more natural than before, and as she watched, the chainmail that lay across the curve of his chest moved fractionally up, then down, in the rhythm of slow breathing. Asleep, not dead. Like Sleeping Beauty, she thought, remembering Adam's words. She looked over her shoulder. Adam and Ronan stood next to each other, Adam gripping Ronan's arm and saying something too quiet for her to hear into Ronan's ear. Ronan still looked miserable and angry. She hesitated over the body. He was still a strange old man. She wondered for a moment if she could get away with kissing him on his bearded cheek.

"Do it, Sargent," Ronan ground out, and she took a deep breath and bent to kiss Glendower.

A weird, tingly feeling burned across her lips, and she jerked back. 

"What happened?" said Adam immediately.

She touched her mouth. It felt normal now. "I don't know. Like static electricity."

"Huh."

"A favor," said Ronan suddenly, stepping up next to her. She looked at him, confused, but he was looking past her, at Glendower, and she followed the line of his glance. "I want the favor."

Glendower's eyes were open.

"Gansey said you'd grant a favor to us if we woke you," Ronan repeated. "I want his life back. I want him alive."

Slowly the king sat up. With one hand he touched the helmet he wore, and his lips curved in a faint smile. Blue thought he looked a little as though he'd expected them to steal it and was surprised to find it still there. He looked toward where Gansey's body lay still and lonely on the floor of the cave, and then gave Blue a slow nod. "It was she who woke me. It is she who gains the favor." His voice was elegant, with the same odd almost-British accent she'd heard from Artemus.

"The same thing," she stammered. "I mean, I want Gansey to be alive."

"That is not in my power. As well you know, Jane."

Anger swept through her, crimson and unstoppable. "You don't have the right to call me that!"

"But that is your name. Why should I not call you by name?" He reached out and took one of her hands. His skin felt normal, warm, alive. "Siân Lawgoch, Jane of the Red Hand, herald of the sleeping king of the Britons. Are you not pleased to have raised me again?"

_Jane of the Red Hand_ _._ Malory's tapestry, the medieval girl with red hands and her face. She wrenched her hand from his grip. "That wasn't me. I'm Blue Sargent."

He regarded her steadily. "You are now. And I am Owen Glendower –" only he didn't say it like that, it sounded liquid and smooth, like he was saying it in another language – "and I am also this Gansey."

"You're not Gansey," said Ronan. Each word dripped venom. "Gansey is dead. You killed him."

Glendower inclined his head. "You could see it that way."

Ronan turned away and knelt again by Gansey's body. "Jesus fuck. What do we do now?"

"I don't know." Adam sounded as lost as Ronan did, as lost as Blue felt. Raising Glendower had been Gansey's obsession, and now it was done, and the one person among them who wanted it most was dead. 

"I don't like this place," whined Noah. "Can I go yet? Please?"

"Oh, Noah," said Blue. Her eyes filled with tears, though whether for Noah or Gansey she wasn't sure. For all of them. For this whole sad, sorry mess that had swept them all up, for the quest that had given them so much and then taken it away, taken everything away.

"The circle closes," said Glendower quietly.

There was a shout from the front of the cave. "Here they are!" 

Blue raised her head. "Artemus?" 

It was not just Artemus but everyone in Henrietta, it seemed: Maura and the Gray Man and Calla and Gwenllian, and things got confused for a while. Artemus rushed up to Glendower and knelt before him in the muck on the cave floor, while Maura hugged Blue. "I hate caves," her mother said in her ear. "Let's get out of here."

"Gansey." She couldn't complete the sentence.

"Leave him," said Gwenllian airily. "He can have this tomb. It's nicer than mine was."

"We can't do that to his family," said Blue, looking at Maura. "They'd want to know what had happened to him. They deserve to be able to bury him." She hugged her mother again, thinking again of the last time they were in a cave together. The idea of just allowing Gansey's family to think he'd disappeared somewhere appalled her. She remembered the Czerny family, their wordless grief when they buried Noah's bones; but at least it was something definite, an end to seven years of not knowing. "Like Noah." It hit her then, a sudden hammer to the gut, and she looked straight at Glendower. "That was the favor, wasn't it."

"He's gone," said Adam. He frowned and made some complex gesture with his hands that Blue couldn't interpret. "I mean, really gone. The energy of the ley line shifted just before everyone came in, I think – I mean, I felt...." His voice trailed off, and he shook his head. There was an odd note in his voice, an anguish that seemed out of proportion with the fact of Noah's disappearance. He swallowed. "We'll carry Gansey out. I guess I could call his parents."

"What are they doing?" asked Maura. She was looking past Blue toward the slab, where Artemus and Gwenllian now stood, each turned slightly toward Glendower, who now stood between them. "Artemus?"

But it was Gwenllian who answered. "This is none of your concern now. Go. Take the husk if you want it."

After some deliberation, the Gray Man lifted Gansey's body across his shoulders and began walking toward the cave mouth. Ronan and Adam followed, arguing fiercely but quietly about something Blue couldn't quite make out. As she turned to go, Glendower held up a hand. "Will you stay with me, Jane?"

"Not on your life," said Blue fervently, and she followed the others out.

* * *

They all went together to the funeral, which was held in Washington D.C. They hardly spoke on the drive, which was miserable. The weather was as bad as their collective mood, sheets of icy rain sleeting out of a black sky to freeze onto the asphalt, and Ronan drove too fast for the conditions, a scowl set on his face that warned Blue and Adam that if they complained they'd be dumped out on the highway to walk the rest of the way, goddamn it. 

The service was tasteful and understated and Blue felt profoundly uncomfortable. Her mother had ordered her to buy an actual black dress, which made her feel as though she was wearing a costume. Helen introduced her to Gansey's parents as Adam's girlfriend, and Blue couldn't bring herself to correct her. She hadn't been Gansey's girlfriend, anyway, not really. Helen's words were perfectly nice but there was something in her tone that sounded like a sharp blade, and even though Blue knew that Helen couldn't know the role she had played in Gansey's death she still felt the guilt weighing her down, like any harshness directed at her would be only natural, her own fault.

On the way back to Henrietta she dozed in the back seat of Ronan's BMW, letting Ronan and Adam's sharp, furious conversation flow over her in waves. At one point she woke to hear Adam saying, "Maybe she's jealous. She fluttered her eyelashes a lot at me when I was up there, you know." His voice trailed off uncertainly, then finished, in a rushed mumble: "With Gansey." 

"That time when you came back with that shitty car, yeah." 

"You know it's not true. But we have to stick together. We're all that's left."

Blue wondered what it was that wasn't true. Because he did come back with the Hondayota, so that wasn't it.

"Yeah," said Ronan, and neither of them spoke for a long time, and eventually Blue drifted off to sleep again.

They did stick together, though. It was as though with the loss of Gansey (and Noah; of course he was already dead, had been dead for eight years at this point, but that didn't mean they didn't grieve for the loss of his ghostly presence) the rest of them had to draw even closer to hold their depleted circle together. It had been a joyous, all-encompassing, obsessive friendship among the five of them. Now it was less joyous, but no less obsessive, and they shut out the rest of the world as completely as they could.

It turned out that Gansey, being Gansey, had actually written a will, and he'd left the Pig to Ronan and the Suburban to Blue, and Monmouth, astonishingly, to Adam. 

Adam didn't have much stuff to move, but Blue and Ronan helped him anyway, setting his books and things in the room that had been Noah's. The Henrietta model they left on the floor. None of them could stand the thought of moving any of Gansey's things out of Monmouth. And anyway, it was only going to be until next fall, when they went to college.

College. Every time she thought of it, Blue rolled the word around in her mind with delight, savoring the idea, the sheer audacious plan they had cooked up, she and Adam and Ronan. It was a wondrous thing to Blue, that they'd all be going to college together. The memory of that horrible meeting with Ms. Shiftlet still stung. _Reach_ _schools_ _, match_ _schools_ _,_ _and_ _safety_ _schools_ , the guidance counselor had chirped. _A sensible backup plan_ ; code for a _ll you can afford is a community college, so don't bother applying to any real schools._

Just after they'd learned about Gansey's will they had been preparing the space, making room for Adam's few possessions, when Ronan had said, "If you want to get the kitchen out of the bathroom we could build something downstairs."

Adam had shrugged. "It's only until the end of the school year. I don't care."

"Like you're going somewhere?"

"Assuming I get in." Adam's mouth was compressed into a thin line. He pulled something out of the refrigerator, made a face at it, and dropped it into the trash can.

"Of course you'll get in," said Blue, glaring at Ronan. She was sitting on the floor pulling the mismatched pots and pans from the cabinet under the sink. They were junk, she decided, but they were better than the ones Adam had, and she slid them back into the cabinet. "They'll give you a scholarship too, with your grades," she added, trying not to sound envious.

"And Cabeswater's going to let you go?" asked Ronan.

Adam slammed the refrigerator door hard, making Blue jump. "Cabeswater apparently doesn't care what I do," he said, and stalked out into the main room.

Ronan frowned at Blue. "What." It was a flat statement, not a question, but she shrugged her incomprehension. He jerked his head toward the door, then strode off after Adam. Blue followed. 

Adam had sunk down onto the corner of Gansey's bed, which still sat in the middle of the room. "Cabeswater's not talking to me. It's got Glendower and Artemus and Gwenllian. It doesn't need me." He sounded angry and sad, and a little bewildered, like a small child who has just seen his favorite toy snatched away by a playground bully. "It's weird, really. When Gansey told us about the favor, I was going to ask to be freed from my obligations to Cabeswater."

"You told me were going to ask for Gansey's life," said Blue.

"That was later. I mean, the first time he told us. Then I realized Cabeswater was here," he said, thumping his own chest with the flat of a hand. "I didn't want to lose it. I didn't want to be freed. But now everything feels wrong. I can still sense the ley line – everything Persephone taught me is still there. But Cabeswater isn't speaking through me any more."

"That's interesting," said Ronan, his voice sharp. "Because Chainsaw was gone when I got back here after all that shit with Glendower went down, and she never came back. I've been shut out, too." He held out his hand and curled his fingers into a fist, then opened them to reveal his empty palm. "No dreams. No nothing." His fingers curled again into a fist, and for a moment Blue thought he was going to punch the wall. The anger that always seethed in him seemed closer to the surface than usual, as though any small thing would cause it to bubble out and explode.

Blue and Adam stared at him. "But you're the Greywaren," Blue finally said.

"And yet."

"And yet," echoed Adam.

There was a pause. "Well," said Blue brightly, "I haven't changed. I still have zero psychic powers." _And I killed my_ _true love_ _by kissing him, go me._

A trill of Irish music interrupted them. Ronan pulled his phone from out his pocket. "Yeah?"

"Matthew," Adam told Blue. "That's his ringtone."

"She's okay?" said Ronan into the phone. He sounded more animated than he had all afternoon, his earlier flat tones gone. "Are they still there? Did they say – huh." He leaned against the wall, curled around his phone, listening to whatever it was Matthew was telling him.

"Did you call Declan yet? No, you go ahead and do it. I'll see you on Sunday." The phone went back into his pocket, and he looked across the room at them, smiling. Blue couldn't remember the last time she'd seen Ronan smile. "My mother's back at the Barns."

"Awake?" asked Adam, and Ronan nodded.

"Glendower woke her, and Artemus brought her home." He looked at Blue. "Then he went back to the forest."

"That's great. I mean, about your mother." She tried not to let her disappointment show in her voice, but she wished Artemus had stayed in Henrietta. When they'd found him with Maura in the cave of the third sleeper, she'd thought she'd finally have her answers: why her parents had got together in the first place, why he'd left before she was born. Some small part of her had nurtured the tiny, ridiculous fantasy that that he might be so delighted by the human being he'd helped to create, that he'd want to get to know her.

He'd seemed pleased to meet her, true, and to greet Maura again. But then he'd gone off with Gansey – with Gansey! – and they'd plotted and planned, talked long into the night about Glendower and where his tomb had to be, and of course her mother had refused to allow her to join them. She'd felt it was robbing her of her time with them both. Ronan and Adam and Noah had been just as resentful. It had taken a while, but they'd finally convinced Gansey that it was something they deserved to do together, just the five of them. Without Artemus.

_And look where it got us._ Noah was gone and Gansey was dead, and Artemus was with his king. Everyone had left them; even Cabeswater had abandoned them.

Adam looked thoughtful. "So there's nothing keeping any of us here. No reason we can't all go off to college next fall."

"Easy for you to say," muttered Blue. _Reach, match, and safety._

Ronan looked at both of them, then started laughing. "All right, Parrish, you win. We're all going off to college next fall. You write my essay, I'll find us an apartment." 

"I'll try to get a loan," Blue said doubtfully.

"The First Bank of Lynch will be happy to – shut up, Sargent, we're doing this together or not at all, so stop trying to shoot us in the foot."

She shut up. 

And in the fall, they went to college. Together. 


	2. Chapter 2

"Ready?" Adam had his hand on the doorknob, but he looked at them for confirmation, and they both nodded. Blue and Ronan stood a half-step behind him; she could feel the tension in Ronan's body, the fight-or-flight instinct on full alert. 

Adam swung the door open. At first she didn't see Gansey, and for one moment had the wild thought that she'd imagined him, that Adam and Ronan would laugh at her now, and she wasn't sure if she was relieved or disappointed; but he had been sitting on the step, his back to the door, and at the sound of it opening he stood and turned and nodded toward them. 

"May I come in?" he asked – always polite, that was Gansey, and Adam stepped to the side.

"Please." Always polite, that was Adam, too. 

His eyes met hers and Ronan's in turn as he walked by. "Not as cold as Noah was," said Ronan quietly as he passed them, and Blue realized she hadn't felt the psychic drain she'd felt around Noah, the chill of a spirit taking energy from her.

"You're not a ghost," she blurted out, then felt stupid for saying it.

"No," he agreed. He gestured to the armchair. "May I?"

"Sure," said Adam, but he was frowning. He still held the tarot card in his hand; he flipped it back and forth between his fingers, then finally put it in his shirt pocket. "You're not Gansey, either."

"No."

Ronan let out a whoosh of air through his teeth, not quite a whistle. Adam nodded, as though he'd expected this all along. He closed Blue's laptop and moved it from the sofa to the coffee table, and sat in the spot where it had been. "Glendower."

"Yes," he said, and smiled as though it had been a quiz question, and Adam had gotten the correct answer.

Blue still felt weirdly unbalanced, as though gravity had shifted to pull things at a sideways angle instead of straight down. Whether this was Gansey come back to life or a mysteriously transformed Glendower didn't matter. Both options were equally bizarre, each making as little sense as the other. She stumbled to the sofa to sit herself heavily down next to Adam, who felt reassuringly solid and real by her side. 

Ronan had not moved from his place by the door. "You look like Gansey," he said, and though he spoke quietly Blue could hear a hint of challenge underlying his words. Standing with his arms crossed in front of his chest he had the appearance of a sentry.

"You have it exactly backwards," said Glendower. "Gansey looked like me."

In the silence that followed these words, Blue studied him. He wore sharply-creased khakis and a gray sweater that looked like the softest of wool, the edges of a pale blue collar visible at his neck. The sort of thing Gansey would have worn, not the robes Glendower had been wearing in the cave. Though it had been a long time since she'd seen either of them. 

It had been, she realized, seven years since that day in the cave. She remembered thinking then that he resembled Gansey. But even with his beard gone and his hair dyed to hide the gray, he wouldn't have looked the same. Gansey had always seemed ageless, an ancient soul in a young body, but his face had been that of the young man he was. The Glendower they had woken had weathered skin and yellowed teeth. This man appeared to be in his mid-twenties, like they were. The age Gansey would have been now, had he lived.

_I am Owen Glendower, and I am also this Gansey._

"Do you have his memories?" she asked abruptly. "Gansey's, I mean?"

"I dreamed every bit of his life." At that, Ronan snorted, and Glendower turned to look at him. "Of all people it is you, who are the Greywaren, who should know the reality that lies at the heart of our dreams."

"I used to, yeah." Ronan's pointed glare would have reduced a lesser man to dust, thought Blue, but Glendower only nodded.

"Was it you who did that to us?" asked Adam. He sounded more curious than accusatory. "Did you take Cabeswater's power away from us?"

"The power of the ley line is not infinite. What there is came to my need."

"Because you needed it so much more than we did," Ronan spat out.

"Because," said Glendower, his voice ringing through the living room, unexpectedly sonorous: "I am the Raven King."

The silence in the wake of this statement was nearly palpable. Finally Blue gathered her courage. "Then why are you here?"

"You are my court. We belong together, all of us." He gestured around the room: to Blue's painting hanging over the fireplace; to Ronan's pipes leaning against the wall; to the shelf of Adam's books. As though he knew how they had made a life together. 

As though he intended to be part of it.

* * *

They had bought the house four years, almost to the day, after Gansey's death. Their college degrees were only formalities at that point, and both Blue and Adam had good jobs lined up in Charlottesville. Ronan played with a Celtic band four nights a week and, on occasional afternoons, drove to Henrietta to tutor failing Aglionby boys in Latin. There was a rumor that the administration wanted to offer him the teaching job – since his time there, Aglionby had only found temporary teachers, each of whom quit after a single term, though none since Whelk had actually died doing the job – a prospect which filled Blue and Adam with glee, and Ronan himself with a deep horror. 

They'd found a big brick Victorian on a tree-lined street on the edge of Charlottesville. It was close enough to Harrisonburg for them to finish the semester with a bit of commuting, and close enough to the University of Virginia Law School that Blue and Adam could take classes there if they wanted. (Now, three years later, Blue was in her first year of the environmental law program, and Adam had decided against law and instead gone on for his Master's degree in Economics, paid for by the political think-tank he worked for.) It was also close enough to Henrietta that Ronan could spend as much time as he wanted at the Barns, or even take that job at Aglionby. (Which he didn't.)

Initially Ronan had offered to make the down payment since neither of the others had nearly enough money saved. They would all chip in on monthly costs, the mortgage and utilities and whatever. But finding a lender willing to write a mortgage on the still-only-theoretical income from their first jobs was tough, and they quickly became tired of explaining why they wanted all three of them named on the documents. Finally Ronan said, "You know what? I'll pay cash. This whole runaround is pointless."

"That's not what we agreed," said Adam. "I'll be making enough this summer to make the banks happy." His Economics degree trumped Blue's Environmental Studies degree, at least when it came to salaries. Even with his entry-level position, he would be making more than both Blue and Ronan combined. Admittedly it was still a fraction of the wealth Ronan had inherited, but the fact of it being something that he would be getting from his own ordinary skill was a point of absurd pride to him.

"This summer is still four months away," Ronan pointed out. "I'm sick of living in this dump. Look, I'll get the papers drawn up so that we all own it."

Blue did not point out that "this dump" was nicer than Monmouth Manufacturing had been, at least in terms of livability, and he hadn't complained before. "We'll pay you back," she said.

Ronan grinned. "You can try."

"It's impossible to reason with him in this mood," Adam told her gravely, and she laughed, remembering how stiff-necked about money he had been back when they'd met. Well, she'd been that way, too. But they'd changed – they'd all changed. The apartment that had been their home for nearly four years no longer met their needs. They could use more room, and owning a real house seemed like an alluringly adult thing to do. Admittedly, owning a real house _jointly with Adam and Ronan_ seemed like a frighteningly insane thing to do. But they'd lived together for almost four years now. It really wouldn't be any different, especially if Ronan was planning to buy something outright. 

Still, it was an exciting and scary step to take, just as four years before it had been exciting and scary to move out of 300 Fox Way and into the apartment, to no longer be a high school student living at home, but a university student living with roommates. 

Seven years ago, now. It seemed a lifetime, in some ways.

* * *

Maura had hugged her and cried a little, and told her to take care of herself, and to call at least every other week, and that if anything went wrong she could just come right back home, no questions asked. "And you know I have never, ever regretted having you, Blue, you know that, right?"

"Yeah, of course," she had replied, bemused.

"But you're going to college, and it's going to be tough enough without a baby to take care of. So just make sure you use protection, okay? I mean, he's a nice boy, and I'm sure he'd marry you, and of course we'd help out –"

" _Who's_ a nice boy?" This whole conversation was veering off into territory she A, didn't understand, and B, did _not_ want to get into with her _mother_. 

"Your Coca-Cola raven boy. Adam Parrish," said Maura, looking first confused, then alarmed. "You're not dating the _other_ one, are you?"

"I'm not dating _either_ of them! We are all _friends!_ " And that was the truth as she saw it. Though _friendship_ was a weak, watered-down term for how she felt about them, how they felt about each other. Or maybe it was just that most people were happy with a weak, watered-down version of friendship. Their friendship was intimate and all-consuming; it involved spending all the time they could in each other's company, and supporting each other loyally with no questions asked. 

What it did not involve, as she saw it, was sex. Which is why she had been completely taken by surprise, that first October, when she discovered that Adam and Ronan were sleeping together.

The first two months in the apartment – a three-bedroom in a sprawling complex of garden apartments populated pretty much entirely by students – had been spent getting used to Harrisonburg and to college classes, and to each other. Of course Adam and Ronan had lived together at Monmouth Manufacturing in the spring and summer, but to Blue that didn't count. That had still been Henrietta, and the ghost of Gansey, which may have been less literal and tangible than Noah's had been but was every bit as real a presence to them, still permeated everything they did. The apartment was a fresh start, a blank page. Potential.

The three of them did everything together, at least as much as they could. They had arranged to take the same sections of their core classes, and in the afternoons they sat together and did their homework at the dining room table. When Blue had to work – 10 hours a week at the front desk of the Carrier Library, because she didn't get a scholarship like Adam did, and the prospect of borrowing enough money from Ronan for rent and food as well as tuition was too much to contemplate – Ronan and Adam came there to study. They went to the Food Lion together and argued whether store brands were really just as good as name brands, and they alternated cooking, and whoever didn't cook had to do the dishes. (Though after one memorable incident that first September, it was declared, by mutual agreement, that anyone using more than two pots or pans in a meal had to wash anything over that minimum themselves.) 

After dinner they would watch stupid things on television, or read, or study, or listen to music. Maybe Adam would sit on the sofa with Blue curled up against his side, with Ronan on the floor, leaning against his legs; or maybe it was Ronan sprawled across the sofa lengthwise and Blue sideways in the armchair, both of them with their feet in Adam's lap. 

It had started in the weeks after the horror that was the cave and Glendower and Gansey's death. Nobody could understand what they'd gone through – not even Maura, or any of the women at 300 Fox Way – and their shared experience had drawn them together. They began touching each other casually whenever they were together, and once they'd moved into the apartment, it was a constant thing. Blue found it comforting. When Ronan slid his arm around Adam's waist briefly as Adam did dishes, or Adam grasped Ronan's hand for a moment before Ronan went off to a different class, it didn't register to her as anything unusual. The two of them put their arms around her waist and held her hand the same way, all the time. 

Ronan still mocked her and Adam mercilessly for stupid things, and Adam still got prickly and standoffish, and she supposed she did her share of telling them they were both jerks. But these things were part of their characters, and each of them knew how the others were, and worked around them, like avoiding a creaky step on a staircase or always giving the door handle a hard jerk to make it open. It never got in the way of their friendship. Not until that October night.

She had woken at four in the morning and could not get back to sleep, and wandered out to the kitchen in her t-shirt and undies, thinking of herbal tea. She'd always avoided her mother's horrible concoctions, but after moving into the apartment she'd developed a taste for Celestial Seasonings' Sleepytime tea. She didn't know whether the chamomile and mint actually made her sleepy, but she liked the artwork on the box, with the bear in his shirt and nightcap dozing in an armchair in front of a fireplace.

She filled a mug with water and microwaved it to boiling, then dropped in the teabag and stood there in the dark, letting the mug warm her hands, waiting for it to steep the perfect three minutes by the digital clock on the microwave. The door to Adam's room opened; she heard the quiet snick of the doorknob, and turned her head. 

Adam's voice murmured, "Get some sleep," and for a moment she was startled, wondering how he knew she was there, why he had gotten up to tell her this. Then she heard a soft hum of agreement, and a sound that couldn't be anything other than a kiss, and then a dark shape detached itself from the doorway of Adam's room and went to Ronan's room, and opened the door.

She dropped the mug. It shattered on the tile of the kitchen floor. 

"What the fuck was that?" said Ronan, as Adam switched on the hall light.

"You know exactly what the fuck it was," Blue said furiously. "Apparently I'm the only one who didn't." She didn't bother cleaning up the mess, but stomped into her room, slamming the door behind her. She burrowed under her covers and considered turning off the light, but she knew that all she would see against the darkness of her eyelids would be Ronan and Adam, their arms around each other, their mouths pressed together.

A few minutes later there was a knock on her door.

"Go away."

The door opened anyway, and to her astonishment, it was not Adam, but Ronan. He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms, looking contrite – as much as he ever did, which was not very contrite at all. She thought he looked rather smug, actually, but to his credit he was trying to hide it. "This is why we were being discreet around you. Adam thought you'd take it badly."

"Points to him for figuring out the obvious. So why are _you_ telling me what _he_ thinks?"

"Because you are fucking scary when you're mad," Ronan said matter-of-factly. She let out a snort of laughter at the thought of these two tall, confident boys being afraid of her tiny self. "No, seriously. It's not that he wasn't interested in you. But he thought you were still mourning Gansey."

"Aren't you?" she shot back.

"Always," he said, and the raw anguish in his eyes made her look away for a moment. Ronan had been Gansey's best friend before everything else, before either boy had met Adam, before she had seen Gansey's spirit on St. Mark's Eve.

"I can't forget him either, you know that. Or what happened in Cabeswater. But it's different now, don't you think? Here?" She swept her hand around the room, but what she meant was: not in Henrietta. "I thought we were moving forward, together. All three of us."

"You broke up with Adam." Ronan's face, lit oddly from below by her bedside lamp, had the eerie look of a skull. "Finders keepers."

"People aren't _objects_ to be – to be scooped up and stuck in your pocket!"

"Jesus, Blue, we just wanted to apologize for freaking you out. We _are_ moving forward. You should think about moving forward, too."

"I'd like you to move forward _out of my room!_ "

"Jesus," he muttered again, but he ducked out and closed the door behind him.

For a moment she considered throwing off the covers and stalking after him, confronting him, confronting Adam. Maybe she _had_ expected that she and Adam would get together again, after enough time had passed. 

_I don't want to kiss you_ , she had said. _It's not going to be you and me_. At the time, she'd believed it was about his casual, unthinking sexism, the way going from _friend_ to _girlfriend_ had changed the way he treated her. She was pretty sure he'd thought it was about the kissing thing, not to mention that it confirmed his imagined inadequacy, his rock-bottom belief that he could never be worthy, never be loved. In retrospect she had realized that really, it had been about Gansey. For both of them, it had been about Gansey. 

At first she had thought that this was it, she'd just be alone forever. Why not? She'd met her true love and she'd killed him, end of story. She couldn't argue with the finality of it. Nobody else would ever measure up, so why bother? But moving out of Henrietta and going to college changed her mind, or at least gave her the hope that she might eventually settle for a perfectly good second-best. She was surrounded by so many completely new and unfamiliar cute guys! They nodded to her as she walked into the lecture hall, smiled at her across the lab table, chatted with her as they waited for the professor to come in to start the class. 

The guy she usually sat next to in freshman calculus (a subject Adam and Ronan had, of course, studied at Aglionby, and so didn't have to take) had even asked her out, back in September, the second week of class. His name was Dawson, and he was almost as short as she was, with wavy blond hair and tortoiseshell hipster glasses. She would have said yes, except by then she and Adam and Ronan had developed their own comfortable life together, and it would have felt like a betrayal to share any greater intimacy with someone else.

Betrayal. That was it, exactly. Only it wasn't because one of them had reached outside their circle; it was because Adam and Ronan had reached across their circle for each other, and excluded her.

She snapped the light off, but it was a long time before she managed to fall asleep. 

* * *

All traces of the mug she'd dropped had been cleaned from the floor by the time Blue ventured into the kitchen in the morning. Adam and Ronan were sitting at the table, drinking coffee and poking at their phones and looking extremely uncomfortable, obviously waiting for her.

"Well, I'm up," she said brightly. "Hello, my gay roommates." She extracted a clean mug from the dish rack and poured herself some coffee, adding enough sugar to make it drinkable. She didn't really like coffee, but she'd had maybe three hours of sleep, and falling asleep in class would not be a good idea.

"For Chrissake, Blue," Adam groaned.

"He's bi," said Ronan, jerking a thumb at Adam. "I think."

"Whatever." She took a sip of the coffee and made a face. Even with three spoonfuls of sugar, it was terrible. "Anyway, I wish you'd told me earlier, but now that I know, you can stop sneaking around. Might as well sleep the whole night together." She smiled cheerily at them, and they stared dubiously back at her, clearly not fooled.

"I'm sorry," said Adam. "I didn't want you to find out like this."

"No, you didn't want me to find out at all. How long have you been –" she paused, then said, "Sleeping together?" at the same time Ronan said, "Fucking?"

They looked at each other for a moment. "Yes, that's it," she said. "Fucking." 

"Blue," said Adam again.

"What, you don't think a nice girl like me should use words like that? Fuck that sexist shit." She was pleased to see Adam flinch. Not that she used words like that frequently, but it was nice to drop a zinger every so often. She held up the mug as though it were a glass of bathtub gin. "Bottoms up, boys!"

"About six months," said Ronan. That meant they'd gotten into a relationship during the time they'd been living at Monmouth together, Blue realized. "You're not very perceptive."

"Nope," she said, and drank down the rest of her coffee despite the taste. Almost as bad as footy tea. "Gotta go to class! See you later, my gay roommates!"

She cut off Ronan's bark of laughter by slamming the door behind her as she left the apartment. She was sure she'd forgive them soon – if she was honest with herself, she had already pretty much forgiven them – but it felt good to let out her anger, and they were convenient targets. The truth was that she was mostly angry with herself. All the time she'd wasted in a virtual nunnery of her own making. If Adam and Ronan had moved past Gansey's death enough to start having sex, she could do it too. 

Well, maybe not sex. Not yet, anyway. But she was looking forward to kissing someone who wasn't a ghost, and who wasn't 700 years old, and who wasn't going to die when she did it. She was going to do a _lot_ of kissing.

After calculus class, she asked Dawson if he wanted to go out for dinner that Friday night. He said yes.

* * *

She had been planning to go with Adam and Ronan to the Halloween party at the Student Union, but instead she went with Dawson. She'd sewed strips of fake fur on a pair of brown bathrobes from the thrift store, and they wore them along with boots, wrapped with leather strips, fake beards and Spock ears she'd found in the Halloween section at the drugstore, and told people they were Fili and Kili. 

It had been only a couple of days before she and Adam and Ronan had re-established cordial relations, more or less. They no longer sprawled together like puppies on the sofa, and they studied in their own rooms instead of together in the living rooms. But they had gone back to driving to school together on days when their schedules matched, and they sat next to each other again in the classes they shared. Blue no longer grabbed a yogurt from the fridge and went straight to her bedroom to eat it so she wouldn't have to sit at the same table and look at her roommates who were having sex with each other. She still felt a little odd and uncomfortable, but it was obvious that they were trying to include her in everything else they did, bringing the circle back into alignment, and she appreciated that enough to make her own effort toward harmony.

"Hey, Mags!" a voice behind her called, and she turned. Ronan and Adam were making their way in her direction. Their costumes had clearly been chosen for the minimum effort needed to make them; Ronan, dressed in black, wore a headband with a cardboard horn stapled on each side and a rope tail, while Adam, in white, wore a similarly jury-rigged cardboard halo and wings. They each held a red plastic cup of Coke, though she'd bet Ronan's had a shot of rum in it.

Dawson frowned. "Mags? Does he think we're supposed to be from the Hunger Games?"

"Short for 'maggot'. Long story. Don't you dare call me that," she added, seeing his eyebrows go up. 

"So this is the boyfriend." Ronan looked Dawson up and down like Calla appraising a cockroach.

She hit him, not gently, on the arm. "Be nice." She felt her face turning red under the fake beard. She and Dawson were dating, that was all. They'd made out in his car and in his dorm room – he lived on campus – when his roommate was out. They hadn't actually talked about things like exclusivity, about terms like _boyfriend_. It would feel weird to say that in front of him.

"You be good to her," said Adam.

"Or we'll kill you," said Ronan, grinning widely. It was the kind of grin that said that not only would he kill Dawson, he'd do it cheerfully. With his teeth. It gave Blue a sudden strange warm feeling, and she grinned back at him. 

"Go buy a soul or something. We're busy."

"Have fun," said Adam, tilting his cup toward her as though making a toast. "Come on, Lucifer. Stop corrupting these innocent, um." He looked at them uncertainly. "Dwarves?"

"Of course, dwarves! Kili and Fili! From The Hobbit, and I know you saw it, because we watched it together!"

Ronan started to laugh. "Of course, dwarves!" he said, mimicking her tone. 

"Stop being an asshole," Adam told him, and he took Ronan's arm and guided him away from Blue and Dawson. 

"Sorry about that. Ronan's kind of..." A jerk, she thought, but didn't say. "Intense."

"Your brother?" said Dawson uncertainly. He looked across the room to where Adam and Ronan had disappeared into the crowd, his eyes unreadable behind his glasses, and Blue wondered what he was thinking. If he was freaked out by them, he definitely wouldn't be able to handle 300 Fox Way. 

"God, no! As if anyone that tall could possibly be related to me. They're friends from home. We're sharing an apartment. And they're a couple, so don't be jealous." She took his arm. "Come on, let's go dance."

But seeing Adam and Ronan together had put a damper on her mood, and when Dawson drove her back to her apartment she gave him a quick kiss and did not invite him in. A few days later she broke up with him as gently as she could. 

She went out with Julio, who worked at Carrier with her, and with Tyler, who she met at a frat party she went to with a girl from her bio class who didn't want to go by herself. Brendan was a total asshole and she walked out halfway through their one date.

Then there was Peter. Peter had an All-American aura that reminded her of Gansey, white teeth and a firm handshake and ancestors who'd come over on the Mayflower. He was a graduate student, working on his MFA with a concentration in photography. Ronan and Adam didn't hate him on sight, which was a definite plus. 

Peter was the first one Blue had actual sex with. In fact, he was the first guy she had anything more than above-the-waist contact with, because despite living with two people of the male persuasion, the whole penis thing was an issue of deep unfamiliarity to her in any but a theoretical context. She'd grown up in a house of women, after all. Ronan and Adam might walk around the apartment in nothing but tattered shorts, but they were both scrupulous about never appearing actually naked in front of her. Peter was also surprisingly okay with the Virgin Conversation, and willing to take things slowly. 

He had a one-bedroom in a nicer complex than the one they lived in, which made everything a lot easier. No way was she going to have a boyfriend spend the night in her place, not even Peter. Even though her bedroom didn't actually share a wall with either of the other two – there were bathrooms and closets in between – when Ronan and Adam slept together it was always in Adam's room, which was the one farther away, for which she was profoundly grateful. She would feel weird about doing sex things if either of them could hear, and the prospect of the subsequent morning conversation among all four of them at the breakfast table was too horrible to even think about.

The first time she spent the night with him (which she suppose counted as sex, since they had two orgasms each, but did not involve the technical loss of her virginity) the boys gave her shit when she finally showed up at the apartment in the morning, but she'd expected that. It would have worried her if they hadn't, because Ronan's rude comments and Adam's sniggers reassured her that she was still one of them. It felt as though they'd finally gotten back to the way things had been at the start of the school year, when they'd been solidly knit together, united by their sorrow over Gansey's death and the loss of the magic of Cabeswater, by their memories of the past and their hopes for the future. 

She didn't have actual _sex_ sex until the week after Thanksgiving, which they spent with their families, Blue in Henrietta and Peter in Charleston, and Blue was surprised to discover she missed him terribly. She'd already gone to Student Health Services and gotten an IUD; of course she was still going to insist on condoms, but she'd heard enough horror stories about them breaking that it seemed to her that the sensible thing to do was have a back-up plan. They snuggled on the couch after a pizza dinner, smoky music on Peter's stereo which they were both ignoring in favor of his mouth on her breast and her hand stroking over the bulge in his jeans. After a while she bent her head to whisper to him, "How about exploring some new territory tonight?"

"Mmm?" he said, lifting his eyes to hers without moving his mouth from its occupation. Attentive, Peter was. She liked that in a man.

"Virgin territory?" she said, and she couldn't help it, she started giggling, even though she felt his cock twitch under her hand.

He uncoiled himself from her, kissed her on the lips, then stood and held out his hand. "In that case, I propose we adjourn to a more comfortable location."

She felt ridiculously self-conscious taking her clothes off, even though they'd seen each other completely naked three times by then. Maybe it was because there was intent behind it: they were going to take off their clothes, and their bodies would be next to each other on the pale green sheets of Peter's bed, and they were going to have sex. He grinned at her and she felt even more embarrassed, but she'd feel even stupider if she turned her back, because he was going to get more than an eyeful in a few minutes.

Peter was good, though. He gathered her in his arms and kissed her hair for a while, just standing there next to the bed, and she felt the heat of his body, the unmistakable erection pressing into her stomach even hotter than the rest of him, the condom a weird plastic sensation against her skin. It was as though he was the anti-Noah, not sucking heat and energy but giving it, making her feel both calmer and more aroused. She tilted her head so that he'd kiss her lips instead, and he tightened his arms around her, lifted her, and then fell backwards, tumbling onto the bed, bringing her with him.

It felt kind of odd, but it didn't really hurt, and there wasn't any blood. Peter slid his hand between them and made sure she came while he was inside her; she had no sooner opened her eyes than he was thrusting harder and gasping, and she held his hips as he moved and watched him make faces until he collapsed on top of her.

 _I've just had sex_ , she thought. That was sex, right there. It was strange to think that this was something special, something that counted in a way the pleasure given from hands and mouths did not. Something that was supposed to be saved for someone special. Something saved for your true love.

Something she should have done with Gansey.

 _Gansey is dead_ , she told herself. _I had a true love, and I killed him._

Peter had rolled off her to discard the evidence in the trash, but he heard the small choked-off sob that escaped her. "Hey," he said softly. He slid back next to her and took her in his arms, kissed her ear through the tangle of hair. "Hey. You okay?"

Blue sniffed a little and wiped her eyes with the back of a hand. "I'm fine. It's not you." She snuggled into his chest. "Really. It was fun."

"Fun? Blue, I'm hurt. Dancing is _fun_. Roller coasters are _fun_. Um. Help me out here."

He looked so earnest she had to laugh. "Going to the movies."

"Going to the movies is fun, right." His face softened. "I hope this was something more than fun."

"It was," she said, and kissed him. _But it wasn't enough._


	3. Chapter 3

At 300 Fox Way she knocked, then opened the door. The usual mayhem greeted her, turned up to eleven for Christmas time. Maura and Calla were in the kitchen measuring tea into bags for their side business. The scents of nutmeg and clove wafted through the kitchen – Blue couldn't tell if they had been added to the tea, or came from something else cooking – but rather than masking the footy smell, they seemed to amplify it in a truly sickening way.

"I hope you're not expecting me to drink that," she said in greeting, as she unshouldered her bag. It wasn't as though she had to stay there for the holiday – Henrietta was not really that far from Harrisonburg – but it seemed right, somehow, to come home, just for a few days.

Maura put down the tea things and hurried around the table to give her a hug. "I love you too, sweetheart." Then she held Blue at arm's length and scrutinized her. "Oh. Well, I hope you're using protection."

"Well, I learned from you what not to do," she said, more sharply than she'd intended. She could feel her cheeks beginning to flame. "Anyway, that's not what you're supposed to say when your daughter comes home for Christmas. You're supposed to ask how I did in my classes."

"You said you didn't like the smell of our tea. I can say I don't like – well, anyway. I'm sure he's a perfectly nice young man. The one you've mentioned on the phone, Peter, right? And you got A's in everything." 

"Except calculus," called Orla from the other side of the kitchen, where she and Jimi were assembling pies. 

Blue sighed and put the wrapped present Peter had given her under the tree, to be opened on Christmas morning. "Except calculus." The exam hadn't gone too badly, but at this moment she felt as though she had forgotten everything she'd learned in class. Ten minutes in the house, and already the Harrisonburg apartment and her college classes seemed like an entirely different life, one that was being crowded out by the immediacy of Orla's giggles and Calla's swearing, the ringing of the phone and the scents of tea and baking. When she went upstairs to put her bag in her old room she felt her old life pressing in on her, the four walls of her room boxing her in. High school books on the shelves and high school art on the walls and high school clothing in the closet, Henrietta reaching out to reclaim her. 

The phone downstairs rang once, shrill and piercing, and went silent as someone picked it up. But it reminded her of those golden moments she had spent curled around it with Gansey on the other end of the line, talking about little things, pretending fate didn't wait for them with sharpened claws extended. She found herself wishing she could slip out and go to Monmouth – not that there was anything there now, it stood empty but for the model of Henrietta, and Gansey's books and clothes and his stupid pool table, and some things of Adam's. Adam and Ronan were at the Barns for Christmas, and she was invited to come over tomorrow after they went to church. But the Barns wasn't in her heart the way Monmouth was, a monument to Gansey and the golden days they'd all had together. 

What she really wanted to do, she knew, was go to Cabeswater. But that was closed to her. The three of them had tried going there in the summer, an anxious, trembling foray into the forest that none of them were sure would welcome them. And it didn't. Not that it was dangerous, or malicious, or angry. It just...wasn't there. Not the way it had vanished when Kavinsky was hauling things out of the ley line as though it were his own personal Wal-Mart, but in a more subtle, quiet way: it had become mundane. The forest was just a forest, and the cave where they'd found Glendower went back a few feet and then ended in an impassible fall of rock.

Adam had taken it the hardest, pounding on the tree trunks in frustration and shouting angry Latin up to the leafy crowns. "The ley line's _there_ , damn it. But I can't touch it," he said, dropping to the ground to crouch beside the tree that used to be hollow, the tree where they'd all seen visions of the future. Now it was an ordinary tree, a lightning scar on its trunk where the opening had been. "It's like trying to grab a fucking laser pointer. It's like it's ignoring me on purpose."

Ronan had nodded. "The trees aren't talking." Blue might not know Latin, but she, too, could tell that the rustling voices that had enveloped them when they'd been there before were no longer there. They were just leaves. The birds were ordinary birds, Henrietta birds, not Cabeswater birds. Adam's watch didn't stop, and Ronan's phone still worked. If the magic was still there, it was out of their reach.

There was a rap on the door, which was open. Maura poked her head around the frame. "May I come in?"

Blue jerked her head, meaning _yes_ , and Maura came to sit beside her on the bed. "I didn't mean to pass judgment on you like that. You're right. Nothing I didn't do when I was your age. And at least you got almost straight A's, and you're not pregnant. Right?" 

"I am _definitely_ not pregnant."

"See, you're doing better than I did. And you're happy, that's the important thing. It can't have been easy to move past what happened last year."

"I haven't moved past anything. I just want to live a normal life, you know? Go to college, have a boyfriend."

"You, normal?" Maura's laugh was not ungentle; it was the laugh of a mother who knew her daughter well, and Blue couldn't help but smile ruefully in return. "Normal is what you make of it. I mean, look at me. Knocked up at eighteen by a guy who came from medieval England, not that I knew it at the time, and now I'm dating a former contract killer."

"I think my goal in life is to be more normal than my mother, which is a pretty low bar. And speaking of my extremely-absent father, have you seen him at all since – last year?" she finished, adopting Maura's term. It made a good shorthand, and using it meant she didn't need to say Gansey's name aloud. She already felt his absence as keenly as the presence of any ghost, and it almost seemed as though saying his name would bring his vengeful spirit, like in the old folktales. She didn't want him to hear about Peter, about her new life. The time they had together had to be preserved and kept apart, like a heart in formaldehyde, a tropical flower in a pot that couldn't be brought out into the real world without it wilting. Gansey was part of the past, and Cabeswater.

Maura shook her head. "Nobody's seen him. Or Gwenllian, for that matter, which thank heaven for small favors."

"Do you miss him?"

"Miss him?" 

"Well, you were looking for him, right? You and Neeve?" Belatedly Blue wished she hadn't mentioned her half-aunt. That name brought with it a whole host of other issues; she still felt a vague sense of nausea, remembering the thing she'd spoken to that night she'd found Neeve scrying, the thing that spoke with her mouth but was in no way human. That had turned out to be the third sleeper, the one not to wake. Maura had tried to keep it sleeping in its cave, but Piper had woken it and set it free, and it had killed Neeve and taken her form. Then it had killed Piper as well, and come after Gansey and the rest of them.

Blue wondered if that whole chain of events had been set in motion by Neeve's scrying. Had her finding that creature on the corpse road – that creature finding her body through the ley line – led it to her, or her to it? Neeve had been missing for some time, and at first, when she came back to Henrietta, looking for Gansey, they had been fooled. But then those insect eyes, implacable and hungry, had stared out of Neeve's face.

It had been difficult for Blue to help kill a thing that looked like someone she knew, but it had not been impossible.

The set to Maura's lips showed she had remembered, too. "I was looking for him because that king was manipulating me through the corpse road, apparently. I had thought I was just curious. I had thought I was finding him for you."

"I guess you were, kind of. I mean, he was part of what was meant to happen, right? The prophecy thing. My true love." Blue tried to keep her voice steady, but it wavered enough that Maura put her arm around her shoulders, pulled her close in a quick hug.

"Honey, that's over and done. A lot of people lose their first love and go on to find someone they can love just as much. Don't feel guilty about loving your boyfriend. If you love him, I mean, you've got lots of time. You don't have to settle." 

"So you're over Artemus."

"I am." Maura took a deep breath, and Blue suddenly felt apprehensive. Her mother, she realized, was nervous. "Which is what I wanted to talk to you about."

"You wanted to talk to me about being over Artemus?"

"I wanted to tell you that Dean and I are getting married."

Blue stared at her. "Mr. Gray."

"That's right."

"You are seriously going to marry an ex-hitman? That's...kind of awesome, really."

Maura smiled wryly. "I think that low bar for normal just dropped another notch."

"No, I think that's great. Really. I like him. Is he going to move in here?" She frowned. "Has he already moved in here?" He had certainly spent a lot of time at 300 Fox Way, ever since he'd come into their lives looking for the Greywaren and met Maura instead. Even when Maura had been missing, down in the cave, he'd been there, teaching Calla self-defense, eating Persephone's pies, reassuring Blue that they were going to find her and everything would be all right. But she hadn't thought he'd actually moved in. The house would be too full of women, she thought, for someone like him to be comfortable. Too much estrogen and too many psychic vibrations. 

"Actually, Dean's writing a book, and this place, well." Maura made a vague gesture with her hand, and as though she'd caused it to happen, there was a sudden shriek from downstairs followed by Orla's voice screaming something unintelligible. "Not exactly conducive to quiet concentration."

"A book, huh. About being a hit man?"

"I think it's poetry. Or history. Or history of poetry, something like that. But I'm ready to get out of here. It's not the same without Persephone, and with you up in college now. Fiona's just divorced her husband and wants to move in with her two girls." Fiona was another aunt, younger than Maura, and although Blue had never met her daughters she had the impression they were just kids, eight or ten years old. "So we were hoping you could speak to your friend Adam about us buying that building from him."

Blue stared at her. "You want to buy Monmouth."

"Dean thought the building would make a good conversion. A studio for my work, an office for his, some living space. He's saved quite a lot of money, apparently, and if Jimi and Calla buy me out, I'm sure we can afford whatever he's asking." She paused, then continued, delicately. "You know Dean's been there before."

"When he went after Ronan."

"When he went after what he thought was something in Ronan's possession," she said evenly. "He saw the model of Henrietta your raven boys had made, and he was quite taken with it. He wanted me to be sure you knew he wouldn't destroy it. He said it was something that deserved to be saved."

"Oh, how very _thoughtful_ of him," said Blue, and maybe it made her a bad daughter, but she was pleased to see Maura flinch at her tone. Mr. Gray had told her, later, how he'd stopped the other goons Greenmantle had sent when they began to trample across the model's Main Street. But how could her mother and Mr. Gray possibly live at Monmouth Manufacturing? That was _her_ place; that had been _their_ place. Hadn't she just been thinking of it as a monument to Gansey? What gave them the right to take it?

_What gives you the right to prevent it?_

She might hate the idea, but if she was honest, she had to admit she had no right, none at all. It wasn't hers to hang on to or dispose of. And hadn't she said she wanted to move on, have a normal life? Monmouth had already felt like a different place during the summer, with Adam and Ronan living there, instead of Gansey and Ronan and Noah. Keeping it as it was wouldn't bring Gansey back. Move forward, she thought, and sighed.

"Adam could probably use the money," she said, finally. "I'll ask him about it tomorrow."

* * *

It was almost a relief to go back to Harrisonburg, back to her classes. Henrietta had changed so much, so quickly, it seemed to her. Maybe it was just what happened when you only saw a place at long intervals; it was like watching a movie while blinking slowly, forcing the images to change in jerks and stutters. Each scene gave way abruptly to the next rather than transitioning smoothly. She wondered whether Ronan, who made the long drive every Sunday to go to church with his family, saw it differently.

She told Adam what her mother wanted, as she'd promised, and he looked at her oddly.

"Is that what you want? You want me to sell Monmouth?"

"It's up to you. I don't care." She left the room before he could argue with her about it. Let him argue with Ronan, she thought. I don't care. Monmouth wasn't the same place without Gansey. 

When she saw Peter again she had the same feeling for a moment, that the two weeks they'd spent apart had magnified all their differences. He seemed older, somehow – well, he was older than she was to begin with, but he seemed more confident, more assured. She wondered what changes he saw in her – did her accent scream 'Henrietta'? Had the drama and volume of 300 Fox Way rubbed off on her?

He kissed her firmly, pulling her hard against him. "Missed you, sweetie. And thanks so much for the slippers. Really keep my feet warm."

"Glad you like them," she said, but she was thinking, _Warm? That's what he noticed?_ She'd bought four sweaters and a beat-up leather handbag from the Salvation Army, cut them up into strips and sewed them into three pairs of slippers, for Peter, Ronan, and Adam. They were soft to the touch – she'd found real wool and even one angora blend – and the colors were subdued for her taste, all tans and browns and dark blues, but she figured that would be better than the bright teal and yellow ones she'd made for herself as a test. "It was fun to make them," she added. Just in case he hadn't noticed the little slip of paper she'd put in them: _Handmade for you by Blue Sargent_.

"Nice to have a super-talented girlfriend. Let me know if you want to knit me a sweater."

"Well, I didn't actually do the knitting. Just the piecing together. But it might be cool to learn how to knit," she added hurriedly, when she saw the look that crossed his face. It wasn't a disapproving look, exactly, but it still made her feel a little like a fraud. Peter's family had money, the kind of money Gansey's family had, and the bits of sweater in those slippers were probably the only second-hand items in his entire apartment. "And the picture is amazing. Both pictures. My mother loved hers." The framed black-and-white photograph of the campus he'd given her had been the first thing she'd seen when she opened the package. Underneath had been a second framed picture, this one of Blue, laughing, her hair wind-whipped in strands across her face. She remembered him taking it on a cloudy day in early December, saying that he wanted something to remember her by while she was off on winter break. There had been a sticky note on its frame indicating it was for Blue's mother. It had been a thoughtful gift, and Maura had genuinely appreciated it.

His face relaxed into a smile. Order had been restored to his world, apparently. "Maybe one day I'll get to meet her."

"Oh, god, no," she said without thinking. "I told you she's a psychic, right? She'll tell you something terrifying and you'll run away and never want to talk to me again."

"She probably does that to all your boyfriends. She's just being protective."

"I haven't had a lot of boyfriends." Just Adam, and that hadn't lasted long. Gansey had never even really been a boyfriend; they'd danced around what they knew they had, as though that could keep the prophecy at a distance. 

"Well, then. She won't have anything bad to say to me, I'm sure." He kissed her again, and then slid his hand under her shirt; and she forgot about her mother, and about prophecies, and even about slippers. 

But later she found herself lying awake, imagining introducing Peter to her extended family, and all the ways it could go horribly wrong. Orla would probably try to climb all over him, and Calla would contrive to touch something of his and then mutter something darkly about what she saw, or reveal some embarrassing secret from his childhood. Her mother would insist on reading the cards for him. Mr. Gray would just lurk in the background menacingly.

She didn't even want to think about meeting _his_ parents. 

But he kept insisting. He kept saying things that sounded permanent; he didn't say _marriage_ or _engagement_ , but he said _when you come to Charleston with me_ and _how many kids do_ you _want_ and _if I got a job in New York your credits would transfer_ and _We should visit your family, it's only an hour's drive, isn't it?_

It took only a few weeks for her to realize that she didn't think of Peter that way. Not as something permanent, someone she'd see across the breakfast table every morning, someone she'd share a bathroom with and a life with. She liked being with Peter just fine, liked going to art galleries and sitting in his kitchen, eating the omelets that were the only thing he knew how to cook. She liked sex with Peter a whole lot. 

But Peter's talk of moving to New York had scared her. She didn't want to leave Virginia. She didn't want to leave Adam and Ronan, or be so far from her mother she couldn't just jump in a car and be there in a couple of hours. What scared her most was the thought that maybe if she spent her life with someone who hadn't known Gansey, who had never been to Cabeswater, that part of her life would diminish in her heart. Peter would push them out, and she'd lose what had been the most important thing to ever happen to her.

She began to get bored hanging around in his apartment, reading or studying while he lay on his stomach on the floor, taking macro pictures of weird random things for an assignment. It was even more boring when she posed for him: once she had to sit for four hours in his ugly orange armchair with a bowl of fruit balanced on her head, holding a grayscale poster in front of her chest while he took photos under different lighting conditions. "I had no idea being a model was this fascinating," she said, during a break in which he let her stretch out her arms and neck.

"That's great, because you're my favorite model," he said, with an entirely unironic grin, and she knew it was time to break up with him.

* * *

A week later, Ronan looked across the table at her. "So, did you dump him, or did he dump you?" 

Her spine stiffened. "Why do you assume there was any dumping involved?" 

"Because this is the fifth night in a row you've eaten dinner here. And if this is going to be a thing maybe we should go back to our old cooking schedule."

"I hate cooking."

"We noticed," said Adam. 

He and Ronan were eating spaghetti with some kind of spicy sauce. Blue hadn't seen what Ronan had put into it, but the whole place reeked of onion and garlic. At least they were only going to kiss each other, she thought, and stabbed her spoon viciously into her cup of yogurt. "I _like_ yogurt."

"Probably not a balanced diet."

"I don't see _you_ eating your greens." She regretted the words the instant they were out of her mouth. That's what Jesse Dittley had said, and it reminded her of him, of Henrietta, of Gwenllian, and that took her inevitably back to Gansey.

"Personally I don't give a fuck if you want to eat yogurt every night," said Ronan pleasantly. "But I bet Parrish is sick of doing the dishes. And don't you want spaghetti? Mmm, spaghetti." He twirled some of it around a fork and pointed it in her direction, dipping and lifting it in a parody of a mother feeding a baby, before reversing his hand and bringing it to his own mouth. "I make a damn fine spaghetti sauce."

"With too damn much garlic," Blue shot back, and stood up. "I think I'll eat the rest of my yogurt where I can't smell it." She headed for her room, then called over her shoulder, "Oh, and _I_ dumped _him_."

"You owe me ten bucks," Adam told Ronan, just as Blue slammed the door behind her.

* * *

Weirdly, though, breaking up with Peter seemed to make things around the apartment go more smoothly. One night she nudged Adam aside and announced she'd do the dishes; another evening she invited herself along on the shopping expedition, and soon they fell back into their old, comfortable routine. 

The only thing that was not comfortable was when Adam and Ronan disappeared into Adam's room together. It was funny, because she didn't mind sitting with them sprawled together on the sofa; she was happy to curl up against their legs, or snuggle into Adam's other side, and they both seemed okay with that. She didn't even mind when the two of them kissed, though they wouldn't actually make out with each other in front of her. When she was in the room, it was just a momentary embrace and a quick press of lips. She supposed they thought they were being considerate of her feelings, though she wasn't sure if she was grateful or annoyed. A small, secret part of her still felt as though she and Adam might have been able to build something together, after Gansey, if it hadn't been for Ronan. But she had only to look at them to know they were happy together, and that made a warm feeling bubble in her own chest, which went a long way towards pushing the jealousy aside. 

Of course, it also reminded her that now that she'd ditched Peter, nobody was kissing _her_. So on a Sunday morning, when she'd come out of her room as Ronan was kissing Adam goodbye before his weekly church drive to Henrietta, she'd called out "Hey, don't I get one, too?" They'd both looked at her as though she'd spoken a foreign language, but when she walked up to Ronan he dutifully grabbed her waist and gave her a quick kiss. It was just a peck, and other than being on her lips rather than on her cheek it was no different from the type of kiss he'd give his mother or Matthew, but Blue found it oddly satisfying. After that, she'd made a point of getting her goodbye kiss every Sunday.

(It would have been nicer to have kissed Adam, who would probably have appreciated her lips more than Ronan did, but that was a can of worms she would just as soon not open.)

Sometimes she thought that she'd like to watch Adam and Ronan kissing, really kissing, all passion and intensity, the way she'd kissed her boyfriends. The way she had kissed Gansey exactly once. The idea was kind of a turn-on. But that was the problem; being turned on was kind of pointless when you couldn't do anything about it other than stick your hand up your own skirt. 

The worst was when she was in the apartment and the two of them came in from some stupid and dangerous guy-thing they'd done together like street racing or setting off bottle rockets or climbing up the rough stone outside wall of the Music Library, arms slung around each other and laughing like maniacs, and headed straight for Adam's room. No question what they were doing in there, and it made her feel angry and envious and horny, all at the same time.

She went home one night with a guy she'd met at a party, but if she was honest with herself, it had been really only marginally more enjoyable than masturbating. He was nice enough, but not anyone she'd really want to hang out with – the idea of introducing him to Adam and Ronan was simultaneously appalling and tempting – and though they exchanged numbers, she realized later that she didn't really want to see him again. It was funny, she thought. That crazy urge to date, to kiss all the boys now that she could, had dissolved into the air. It seemed ridiculous, now. Maybe she really had forgiven her raven boys for their betrayal. 

They were in the apartment watching old episodes of South Park – Adam and Ronan sprawled on the sofa, Blue sideways across the armchair – when her phone played the chime of an incoming text. "Crap," she said, seeing who it was from. 

"Don't swear, it's not fucking polite," said Ronan.

"It's just this jerk. I shouldn't have given him my number."

"Mister Candid Camera being an asshole? We'll go beat him up for you."

"Different jerk. Jerkier jerk."

Adam looked over at her and frowned. "The guy you stayed out all night with on Friday?"

"She didn't!" Ronan gasped in mock horror. "Not our sweet little maggot! Tell me it's not true!"

"Shut up, Ronan," snapped Blue. "Double standards piss me off, and don't tell me not to swear again, either." Adam started laughing, and for some reason that made her even angrier. "I don't give the two of you shit for what you do together, so quit bugging me about my personal life, okay? I can spend the night with whoever I want to."

"Except that guy, 'cause he's a jerk," said Ronan.

"They're all jerks. Especially you." That made Adam laugh harder, and she glared. "Both of you. You've got each other, and my boyfriend got stung to death by wasps." Gansey was the biggest jerk of all, because he died for Glendower and left her with muddy knees and a broken heart. "Forget it." She stabbed at her phone to make the offending text go away, and stood up. She could feel tears in her eyes, and she wasn't sure if they were upset tears or angry tears, but she didn't want the others to see them. Besides, if she had to be around them for a moment longer she was going to throw something at them.

"Wait, stop," said Ronan. He flicked the remote and South Park went silent. He pointed at Blue. "You, sit down. This calls for tea."

"For Chrissake," said Adam, who wasn't laughing anymore. "Like you even drink tea."

"Add enough whiskey and it doesn't suck. You, come with me." He jerked his chin at Adam and headed to the kitchen. "Don't even think about leaving the room, Mags."

Blue, who had been thinking about just that, slumped back into her armchair and muttered, "I'm texting the jerk back!" She wondered if it would be better to be regretfully polite or rudely dismissive. He hadn't really been a jerk, just – not what she wanted. But like she'd told Ronan, what she wanted was Gansey. And Gansey was gone.

In fact, she realized, in just over two weeks it would be the anniversary of his death. Maybe that was why she felt raw and angry, unloved and unlovable. Maybe that was why they were all sniping at each other.

It seemed to her that the boys were spending an awful lot of time in the kitchen. Not that she minded, much – she'd taken the chance to wipe her eyes and blow her nose, and she felt like she'd gotten her emotions under control – but it didn't take _that_ long to make tea. She could hear them talking, quiet but urgently, every so often a, "Jesus fuck, Adam!" or a "You asshole!" clearly audible. She raised her voice so they could hear her. "If this is a lover's quarrel, I'm seriously going to bed."

"Don't fucking move!" 

She rolled her eyes even though Ronan was in the kitchen and couldn't see her. "Not moving, right." But they were back only a short time later, Adam holding a frying pan that had been pressed into service as a tray, two mugs of tea arranged on it along with an eight-ounce cup of Blue's yogurt that he must have grabbed from the fridge. Ronan followed him into the room, drinking from a third cup which Blue would bet did not actually contain tea.

She took the cup Ronan lifted from Adam's makeshift tray and put into her hands. A spicy scent wafted into her nostrils. "Is this chai? It's kind of late for caffeine."

"You're welcome. Drink it."

"You're supposed to put milk in it, you know. For chai." She drank it anyway. "I don't think whiskey is authentic, not that I don't appreciate it." It actually was pretty good with the whiskey. Ronan had added sugar, too, more than she usually took, but the sweetness cut the sharp burn of the alcohol. "Is one of you going to tell me what is going on?"

The two of them looked at each other for a moment. Then Ronan plucked the remaining mug from the frying pan and held it up to Adam, who sighed. He put the frying pan on the floor and took the mug from Ronan's hands, then sat on the sofa, on the end closest to Blue.

He looked at her, then back up to Ronan. "Sit."

"Arf arf," Ronan muttered, but sat anyway. He looked at Blue. "If it's not obvious, we're glad you ditched photography-boy."

"His name is Peter. And I thought you liked him." She wrinkled her nose at her phone. "He was a lot nicer than this asshole, anyway."

"So why did you ditch him?" It didn't sound like a question; Ronan sounded like a teacher, quizzing her to see if she'd understood the lesson.

And suddenly, she did. She looked from him to Adam. "If you wanted me to stay a virgin in Gansey's honor, you're a little too late."

Ronan gave a harsh bark of laughter, as Adam said, "You know that's not it." He leaned forward and put a hand on her arm. It had been cupped around his mug of tea, and she felt the warmth through her sleeve. "We agreed to stick together. The things we've done and seen – do you really think anyone here would believe you if you told them?"

"I don't have to share everything in my life with everyone." But she felt the weight of his hand, of his and Ronan's eyes on her, and she knew that wasn't true. Her whole life had been shot through with magic – first her family's magic, that she could only peer into from the outside even as she helped it to happen, like a deaf musician who couldn't hear the notes she played; then Cabeswater and the raven boys, the trees that knew who she was and the fish that changed color as she imagined and reimagined them; then the caves, the ominous magics of the creature that ate Neeve and the dead king that killed Gansey. Magic was an inextricable part of her life, and anyone who shared her life would have to accept that.

Especially now that so much of it had been taken away.

"You don't have to worry about me," she said. She waved the phone at them. "Why do you think I slept with jerkasaurus? He was just a convenient penis. I wasn't going to tell him. We're not going out. I'd break up with him if there was anything to break up, which there isn't."

"You don't have to sleep with guys you don't like," said Adam.

"You have a better plan?"

He squeezed her arm gently, then slid his hand down to hers. Her fingers were wrapped around the handle of her own mug, but he stroked the back of her hand and then laid his palm across it. "Actually, yeah."

She snatched her hand away, almost spilling her tea. "My God, this is what you talked about in the kitchen?" She looked over toward Ronan, who returned her gaze levelly. "Are you okay with your boyfriend making a pass at me? Because honestly, it does not seem like the kind of thing you'd be into."

He took a long drink from his cup, then exhaled as though he was blowing a smoke ring from an imaginary cigarette. "Just let me know when you're going to do it so I can go find something more interesting to do, okay?"

"Seriously, Ronan, you're scaring me. You told me finders keepers."

"That was when you were being pissy about it." He took Adam's chin in his hand and turned his head so he could kiss his lips, then uncoiled himself from the sofa and stood. "What he said. We agreed to stay together. It worked pretty well until you went ballistic – no, chill out, listen to me," he said, as she started to sputter. He came over to her armchair and sat on the wide, plush arm; now she was boxed in between them, Adam leaning towards her on one side, Ronan looming over her on the other. "Drink your tea, Sargent. You were right, okay. We shouldn't have kept it from you. We didn't trust what we had."

"The three of us should have been together from the beginning," said Adam softly. "We were scared."

"Speak for yourself, pansy."

"Shut it, Lynch. Okay, _I_ was scared. You broke up with me once. I didn't know how to ask."

She stared at him. "This is very weird."

"As if anything we've done has ever been normal," said Ronan. He reached out and stroked her hair. It felt kind of nice; it reminded her of Noah, how he used to play with her hair, though Ronan's fingers were warm and alive. He bent over her and kissed her on the lips, the same quick, gentle way he did on Sundays before driving to Henrietta for church services, then got to his feet. "Let me know when you want the honeymoon suite," he said to Adam, who gave him the finger. He laughed, drained his cup, then headed to his room.

Blue watched him go. _Very weird_ did not even begin to cover it, she decided. She turned her head to see that Adam had been watching Ronan as well, an expression on his face halfway between admiration and embarrassment. She touched him on the arm, and he turned to her. "He's really okay with it?"

"It was his idea."

"Oh, God." She drank the rest of her tea-and-whiskey. She tried to imagine Adam in her bed, with Ronan just on the other side of the bathrooms and closets that separated their rooms. Or even worse, going to Adam's bed, with only a cheap, thin wall separating them from his boyfriend in the other room. She studied his face. "What about you, then?"

"Blue," he said softly. "I still think you're the most beautiful human being I have ever seen, and you're the second most amazing woman I have ever met."

"Second?" she said, her eyebrows going up, but of course he was thinking of Persephone, and she couldn't fault him for that. Persephone had taken Adam under her wing at a time when he needed that love, and taught him how to listen to Cabeswater, how to see and understand the magic that was the underpinning of the world. Adam had taken Persephone's death as hard as Maura had, or Calla. Blue couldn't be jealous of her memory. 

"I know I have no right to even the smallest part of your love. But Ronan and I have enough to share, if you want."

She studied her empty mug as though it was the most exciting mug she'd ever seen, and from the corner of her eye she saw that Adam was gazing past her shoulder, in the direction of Ronan's room. A light blush crossed his pale cheeks; it had been an effort for him to say it, and to be honest, she was astonished he'd managed to say it at all. But for all that Adam and Ronan's relationship had hurt her in the beginning, it had made them both better people. Ronan had definitely mellowed, and Adam was less closed-off, not as aloof or protective of his own core. The old Adam never would have admitted anything as complicated or as honest. The old Adam had felt he was unlovable. The new Adam wanted to love her.

The thought was terrifying and exhilarating, like a ride in Helen's helicopter – like something not granted to ordinary mortals. Part of her wanted to grab the opportunity with both hands. A small, quiet part protested that it wouldn't be fair to Gansey. She'd felt betrayed when she'd discovered Adam and Ronan were together. This almost seemed the ultimate betrayal.

But as with Persephone, it wasn't about jealousy, and it wasn't a betrayal. It hadn't been just Blue who had loved Gansey. "It's not a betrayal," she said aloud. "It's an homage."

Adam frowned. "Nothing as complicated as that, I hope."

"We should do something for Gansey's – for the anniversary," she said suddenly. 

"Well, that's an odd way of wanting to commemorate it."

Blue flushed. "No, I don't mean – well, they're separate things, aren't they?" But they weren't, quite. It was no accident, she thought, that this was all happening pretty much one year after they'd woken Glendower. She reached out and ran a finger down his cheek. "Yes. Yes, we can – yes, okay?"

* * *

It was a strange sort of date that Friday night, crammed together into a booth at Corgans' eating cheap happy hour food and playing darts. Ronan was pretty good, testament to way too much time spent in Irish pubs; Adam wasn't bad, and Blue, to her chagrin, was terrible. "This is ridiculous," she complained after a disastrous turn in which she'd failed to hit the board even once. "The stupid dartboard's too high."

Ronan grinned. "Your fault for being a runt." He was entirely too manic, Blue thought, and wondered if maybe he wasn't as okay with this whole thing as he'd made out. None of them had said a word about it since that night. He draped his arm around Blue's shoulders as they watched Adam step up to the line. "Double out on the first one and I'll buy you a beer, Parrish."

Adam took his shot, and doubled out. "Too bad I don't drink."

"Shit," said Ronan admiringly. He let go of Blue and grabbed his own beer for a long swig.

Blue frowned. "You're both unfairly tall. You should have to play on your knees."

"If you insist." Adam dropped to the floor, not quite gracefully. His first dart from his new position bounced off the wall, but his second, aimed in a high, arcing trajectory, hit the board for double seven.

"Shit," said Ronan again, shaking his head. "I'm finding some other sucker to play against. You two go home."

"Don't drink too much," said Adam, getting to his feet.

"Don't fucking tell me what to do."

"Wait, you can't," said Blue, then bit her lip. It had to be two miles back to the apartment, maybe three. She'd told Adam, maybe Friday. But then they'd all gone out together, and she had thought maybe it wouldn't happen after all. Now she saw it had been part of the plan. "Ronan, don't be –"

"Have fun, children," he said, cutting her off. He dropped an elaborate kiss on Blue's forehead and grabbed Adam's upper arm in what looked like a painful squeeze. "Don't wait up."

Adam was silent as they drove back in Ronan's BMW. Maybe he'd decided it was a bad idea; maybe he and Ronan had agreed that he would have to go through with it anyway, that they didn't want to disappoint her. Or maybe they were just resolved that something had to be done about her terrible taste in men. Blue looked out the window at the streetlights, haloed in the light mist. She hoped it wouldn't be raining by the time Ronan walked home.

When they got out of the car in the parking lot of the apartment complex she started walking toward their place, not looking back at him. She heard his footsteps as he strode to catch up. At the door of their apartment, he said suddenly, "Wait."

"What?" She turned back to look at him. In the yellow lights outside the doors his face looked oddly washed-out, his hair and skin the same unflattering beige. 

Cautiously he put his arms around her. "You know, the traditional goodnight kiss at the door."

"But you're coming in. Aren't you?"

"Well, yeah. But you know, we've never kissed each other. I thought it might be nice –"

"Now that my lips are no longer lethal?" She had to smile. Reaching her arms around his neck she pulled him down for a kiss. His mouth tasted like the Coke he'd been drinking at Corgans'. He kissed her carefully, as though he were afraid that she'd think he was trespassing, and she pulled away and frowned. "Adam, I _want_ to kiss you." 

He swallowed. "Yeah. Yeah, I want to kiss you too."

"Let's go in." Blue found her key and opened the door, and he followed her in. "Your place or mine?" He shrugged. "Okay, mine." 

In her bedroom, she closed the door behind them, then sat on her bed and kicked off her shoes. He pulled off his shirt and draped it over her desk chair, then stood awkwardly in front of Blue as though he didn't know what to do with his arms and legs. 

"You look like you're marching to your doom," she said. "You don't have to if you don't want to."

"No, I want to," he said, but his voice was strained. He sat beside her and bent to unlace his shoes. When he'd taken them off he placed them neatly next to each other. "I'm just...not very experienced, okay?"

She couldn't help it; she laughed. "You and Ronan have been sleeping together since the summer, and – oh." He was turning faintly red, and abruptly Blue realized what he had meant. He hadn't had a girlfriend after she'd broken up with him. He'd been with Ronan, but that was all. He'd never been with a woman. She'd be his first.

It made a shiver trickle down her spine, a small electric chill that slid through her body and left goosebumps in its wake. The idea of being his first was somehow both exciting and terrifying, because what if he didn't like it? What if she couldn't measure up to the things that Ronan gave him?

And that thought brought a flood of images to her mind – Ronan and Adam together in bed, touching each other, hands and mouths. Rubbing their cocks together. Sucking each other down. 

But he's not with Ronan right now, she thought. _He's with me._

"It's not like I'm a real expert," she murmured, reaching for him. His skin was warm under her hands. She gave him a gentle shove and he fell back onto the bed, and she straddled him and kissed his lips, his neck, his collarbone. "And you're smart. I bet you can figure it out."

Blue pulled off her own shirt and tossed it to the side, not caring where it landed. Adam reached up to cup her breasts through her bra, then slid his hands around her back. He undid the hooks that held it closed with the careful precision of an engineer.

"Not bad for someone new to the whole heterosexuality thing." She shifted under his touch, enjoying the feel of his fingers on her back and arms as he gently tugged at her bra straps and slid it down her arms and off. 

"I'm smart," he said, pulling her bra free and letting it drop to the floor. "I can figure it out."

Blue leaned forward, just in case he needed another hint, but he was gratifyingly on the ball. His mouth was warm, and he gave each breast equal attention, kissing and sucking lightly, running his hands down her sides. She ran her fingers through his short hair, cupped the back of his neck. He kissed between her breasts and then down her stomach, and she tilted back to let him, enjoying the sensation.

He gave one lick just below her bellybutton, on the edge of her jeans, then straightened. "I don't think I can undo it with my teeth," he said mournfully, and she laughed.

"Hang on." She unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans, so that her pale blue underwear peeked through the fly, then did the same for him. "How's that?"

"I was hoping we could actually take them off."

"In a bit," she said, grinding against him a little, which made him groan. "I like the anticipation." 

"I like anticipation too, but my jeans are too tight," said Adam, reaching down to adjust himself under his open zipper. He turned his hand over to cup his palm between her legs for a moment before lifting it back up to her shoulder to pull her down for a kiss. This time he gave his mouth to hers fully, his tongue licking at the edges of her mouth, moving from her lips to her neck, up to her ear, one slow inch at a time. "I could spend a lot of time kissing you," he whispered; his teeth gently tugged at her earlobe, and then his lips were on hers again.

Kissing Adam was sweet and dreamy, like moving underwater. Blue felt as though everything was happening in slow motion – their hands in each other's hair, their tongues exploring each other's mouths, their bodies rubbing against each other, bare chests and blue jeans. When she'd started dating – started kissing – she'd been ravenous, hungry, eager to taste the mouths that had been forbidden. Now she felt as though she had the luxury to take her time.

"Okay," she finally said, a bit breathlessly. She rolled off him. "I guess you can take those off now."

She slipped the rest of her own clothes off, piled them next to the bed. She kept a few condoms in the backpack she used to carry her books, in the outside compartment with her lip balm and tampons and student ID card. She went over to where it sat, next to her desk, and fished one out.

"You want me to do it?" she said, carrying it over to him.

"You've got more experience."

"Two guys! That's all!" 

"It's not like I'm used to doing things that might get someone pregnant," he said dryly.

She raised her eyebrows. "There are other reasons." 

"Which don't apply." He pulled her in close for another kiss and her whole body tingled with the feel of skin on skin, all the way down. "Like I said," he murmured against her ear. "One guy, and that's all. And it was the first time for both of us."

Blue desperately wanted to ask for more details, but restrained herself. It wasn't her business, and anyway, she didn't want Adam thinking about Ronan right now. She wanted Adam to think about her. "Well, then," she said, after another long kiss. "I've actually got things taken care of, so I guess we don't need it." She tossed the condom across the room in the general direction of her pack, and rolled with him so that he was on his back and she was straddling him again.

"Mmm," he said. "This is even nicer without clothes."

"Yeah," she said, and then there was no more talking for a while. He gasped and bit at his lip when she took him in; she took his hand and showed him where to press and rub as she moved, and it didn't take long at all for the sensation to build and send her soaring and shuddering and gasping with pleasure. He came only a moment later, his face all scrunched up and his free hand clutching at her hip as though it was the only thing anchoring him to the bed.

After a while he got up, but she put a hand on his leg. "Don't go."

"Can I at least brush my teeth?"

"Only if you come back. I want you to sleep here with me."

She turned back the sheets and got under the covers while he was gone, missing his warmth, and when he came back in and got into the bed she snuggled into his arms. This was right, she thought. He wasn't Gansey, Gansey was dead; but this was right.

In the middle of the night she had to get up to pee. Carefully she disentangled herself from Adam's arms and from the sheets and blankets. When she came back to the bed she saw Ronan, naked and fast asleep, his long body curved around Adam's in the narrow space between him and the far edge of the bed. 

She couldn't help smiling a little as she got back into bed. _I guess that's_ _right_ , _too_ , she thought; and then she fell asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

The dining room felt hushed, as though a blanket lay on the house, separating it from the world outside. On the streets of Charlottesville there were doubtless barking dogs and the rumble of car engines, but Blue could hear only her own pulse thundering in her head.

Carefully she filled glasses with pinot grigio: one for her, one for Ronan, one for Adam. She moved on to the last, and hesitated. It seemed to her as though her hands ought to be shaking, but the wine didn't spill. She was pouring a glass for a man who had been dead for seven years. No, she reminded herself, for a man who had been dead for hundreds of years. He only looked like Gansey. She poured the wine. Her hands were steady.

"Thank you," said Glendower gravely.

"You're welcome," said Ronan, before Blue could speak. "Now tell us what the fuck is going on."

"Well." He took a long drink from his wineglass. "Where shall I begin?"

"At the beginning," said Blue, crossing her arms. Dinner smelled good, but it was not nearly as enticing as whatever Glendower might tell them. She had been bursting with questions, and it had been hard to hold her tongue and wait until they were all sitting at the dinner table. While Ronan finished up in the kitchen, she and Adam set the table, acutely aware of Glendower wandering around their living room. It was a good thing dinner had been nearly ready, or it would have been impossible to wait.

Glendower raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips, and he looked so much like Gansey, about to launch into an explanation of something he'd researched or of an idea that he wanted to explore, that it made her feel a bit queasy. But when he spoke, his tone sounded nothing like Gansey's. "The beginning was long before you were born, child."

"Child!" Even as she said it, she knew he wasn't being unreasonable. He looked like a 25-year-old Gansey, but he was hundreds of years older than the rest of them. She supposed he had the right to think of them as children, but it still grated on her.

"Then begin when we woke you seven years ago," said Adam. "When you took Cabeswater from us."

"I took nothing from you. Cabeswater came to my aid."

"You took the magic. Cabeswater's magic."

"The magic came to me."

Blue couldn't stand it any longer. "What have you been _doing_ all this time? Why have you come back now?"

"Seven years, you say," said Glendower softly. He took a sip of wine, then toyed with his glass, rolling its stem between his fingers. "Seven is an interesting number. Seven years it was after Noah's death saved Gansey's life, that I was brought back to this world. Unsurprising that it is seven years that the road has taken to bring me back to you."

"The road," said Adam. "Do you mean the corpse road? The ley line?"

"What an ugly name, corpse road. The road of power, call it. The pulse of the world itself."

"So what have you been doing in the past seven years?" asked Blue again.

"Seven years for you," said Glendower. "For me it has been – well, time isn't a straight line, not for us. Time can be a strange thing in the forest. I'm really not sure how long it's been." He picked up both knife and fork and ate a few bites of food. "Thank you for this. It's very good. I haven't had anything to eat in a long time. What a joy it is to break my fast on something so delicious."

"Thank you, and cut the bullshit," said Ronan. "You had to live on something."

He shrugged, and ate another mouthful of the stir-fry. "We lived in Cabeswater, and so we lived on Cabeswater. The forest provided."

"We," said Blue. "You said we. You and Artemus?"

"Yes, Artemus and Gwenllian, my court-that-was, just as you are my court-that-is-to-be."

"My father and your daughter," Blue said. 

"My dreamer and my mirror," he corrected her. "Just as Ronan and you were to Gansey, Artemus and Gwenllian were to me."

So Artemus _had_ gone back to him, as they'd surmised when he hadn't reappeared after bringing Aurora to the Barns. She felt a deep resentment toward Glendower, that Artemus had chosen him over her. Even if he hadn't had feelings for Maura anymore, he should have cared about his own child. She knew it was ridiculous of her to think that – it wasn't as though he'd raised her along with her mother. They'd only known each other for a few short months, between the time Blue had found him in the cave with Maura, and the time she and the boys finally found Glendower's chamber – but she'd enjoyed that time, and she'd thought he had, too. He'd told her stories of the past, though he'd been cagy about how he'd come to his future.

Maybe, she had thought, he needs to learn who I am, to trust me. He had come through weird rifts in time, traveling on the ley line. At first he hadn't believed Blue was Maura's daughter. But it had seemed to her as though he was just beginning to see her as a human being – and then he was gone.

Along with Gwenllian, apparently. Blue frowned, remembering Gwenllian leading her into the attic, imperiously thrusting her, forcing her to stumble into the space between Neeve's two mirrors. _Mirror magic is nothing to mirrors._ "I'm the mirror, like Gwenllian. But Artemus was my father. Wouldn't I be like him?"

"He was the dreamer, as is this one," said Glendower, nodding toward Ronan. "The Greywaren, drawing on the energy of the forest, in dreams and in wakefulness. He was the one who put us all to sleep, then came forward to create that which would raise us wakeful again."

"Neat trick," muttered Ronan.

"It was your father, Niall Lynch, who found the world's pulse back in the old country. It was he who made the deal to tap it, and followed it here. It was he who gave you your powers. But your blood comes true to you from me. From me and my daughter, to your father and you, the blood runs true."

"What, you're my grandfather? No fucking way."

"Your many-times great-grandfather, yes." There was an unmistakeable smugness to Glendower's tone, and Blue wanted to punch him in the jaw. She'd bet Ronan did, too. 

Then it struck her, the words he'd used. "Please don't tell me he's descended from Gwenllian."

"But of course he is."

"Gwenllian is Ronan's _great-grandmother_? You've got to be joking," said Blue. She stole a quick glance at Ronan. His jaw was set and his eyes stormy; clearly he didn't like the idea any more than she did.

Glendower gave her a brief nod, then turned his face to Ronan again. "Aye. That is why at bottom it has always been the two of us, you and I. The closest of companions, and the best."

Ronan's pale face became even more ashen as he stared at Glendower. "You mean Gansey and me."

Glendower made a dismissive shrug, as though that were only a technicality and no concern of his. "You are descended from kings."

"Yeah, through your nutcase bastard daughter. No thanks."

Adam let out a harsh snort that wasn't quite laughter, and Blue turned her head to look at him. He had been eating his dinner silently, watching and listening. His water glass was empty, and as she watched he abruptly grabbed his wine glass and drank half of it down. That, more than anything in his expression, showed how disturbed he must be. Adam had only started drinking wine with them at dinner a few years ago, and he always nursed the single glass he permitted himself slowly, one sip at a time. Something in the hunched set of his shoulders reminded her of the way he used to be, back in Henrietta. Back when he felt he was unknowable and unlovable, back before the three of them had built this life together out of the pieces Gansey had left behind.

But before they had forged this relationship, it had been Adam and Ronan, and she could tell that he felt wounded by Glendower's words. _It has always been the two of us._ _Gansey and me._ When she had met them, her raven boys, they had already been a solid unit: Gansey, Ronan, Adam, and poor Noah, whom she still missed, sometimes, with a deep ache in her heart. Adam had once confessed to her and Ronan that he had felt like an outsider, even when he was part of their group. He was the charity case who didn't really belong, who had pushed himself into the friendship that Gansey, Ronan, and Noah had shared. 

And then she had come along, and their dynamics had reformed. It was like a chemistry reaction, the five of them solidifying into something better and more complete than any of them could manage on their own. 

"What about Adam?" said Blue. "You said your court was Artemus and Gwenllian. That's two. There are three of us. Who was your magician?"

"My magician," said Glendower, and his voice was full of unmistakable pain and sadness. "You met him. Or rather, you met what he became."

"We did?"

"The third sleeper," said Adam suddenly. He put his wineglass down on the table with more force than necessary, and the wine sloshed in the glass, threatening to spill. "The thing with your aunt's face, Blue." 

Her heart skipped a beat, or at least it felt that way to her. It was hammering in her chest as though it wanted to jump out. "That bug-thing was your magician?"

"Magic is not without risk," said Glendower. "There are horrors as well as delights, and that which you call upon is not always what answers."

Blue nodded, remembering Neeve scrying into that dark bowl. She must have known the risks, but she'd done it anyway. 

"But you are strong, Adam Parrish," he continued. "You have had good teachers, and you have had good friends, and you have turned away from the dark things which have tempted you."

A fine blush covered Adam's cheeks, but he met Glendower's gaze. "So far."

"So far, yes." He took another sip of his wine, then placed it back on the table and leaned back, looking at them all. "And that is why you are all three here, together, in this place. And that is why I have come to you, because you are all three together, and I am here to be with you."

Adam folded his arms and fixed Glendower with a sharp look. "And what do you mean by that, exactly?" 

Glendower spread his hands. "Exactly that. I want you to come with me, and be my court, as we were in the golden days when I ruled a mighty kingdom and you stood at my side. I want you who are my magician, and you who are my dreamer, and you who are my mirror. Come with me now, and we shall rule the world and more."

Blue looked at him – Gansey's easy, confident smile on his face, his complete assurance that they would do as he expected – and something inside her that had been simmering all through dinner exploded. "You...you jerk! You absolute jerk!"

"Be nice to the man, Blue," said Ronan, but when she glanced up at him she could see a grin playing at the edges of his mouth. He didn't like this any more than she did, she was certain. 

"You've been gone for seven years, and you think we should just drop everything we're doing and go with you? We're not in high school any more – Jesus, we've finished _colleg_ _e_ , and Adam's got a fucking Master's degree. We have _careers_. I'm in _law school_." She waved her arms, narrowly missing knocking over her wine glass. "We have _lives_."

"Well, some of us have careers," said Ronan dryly. 

"We all have lives," said Glendower. "Some of them are newer and yet more precious to us." He looked around the table: at Ronan, still looking faintly amused; at Adam, who looked contemplative, his face set and serious; and finally at Blue. She was sure her face was red. "But I would not ask you to make such a decision lightly. And it should be a decision made by all of you together, since it concerns all of you."

"That sounds reasonable," said Adam. Blue looked at him in surprise, but he still looked calm and composed. "And in the meantime?"

"In the meantime, I am afraid that I will have to impose on you. To come to you here it was necessary to stretch my resources to the utmost."

"Cabeswater?"

"Cabeswater, yes. Among other things."

"Artemus?" His name was on Blue's lips before she'd even thought it through.

"Yes." Glendower looked at her, his expression unreadable. "Know that he loved you."

"He didn't even know me," she muttered. Someone kicked her under the table, Adam or Ronan, she wasn't sure. 

But she was right, and Glendower was wrong. Artemus _had_ _n't_ known her. She hadn't had the chance to know him. And from what Glendower was saying, she never would, and oddly, that filled her not with sadness, but a quiet rage. It was his fault that she and Artemus had never had the chance to become close. And now he thought she was going to give herself up to dance attendance on him, to be his mirror. Well, being a king didn't mean you could order everybody around.

She was about to say that he could find his own damn resources, when Adam said, "Of course you can stay here."

"What the fuck, Parrish?" Ronan, apparently, was thinking along the same lines she was.

"He can stay here," repeated Adam evenly. His eyes met Ronan's.

Blue couldn't decipher the signal that must have passed between them, but after a moment Ronan nodded, and his pugnacious expression softened the tiniest fraction. "He can stay in my room. We're sleeping in the big room." He looked over at Blue. "All of us."

"Okay." Her mind whirled. Ronan was the last person she'd expect to give up his space to someone else. Even to a dead Welsh king. But Ronan's room was here on the ground floor, farthest away from the others. Farthest away from the big room – the master bedroom, where they slept together when they all slept together, all three of them. It made sense. It would give them some space. 

Space they were going to need to figure out what to do.

"Thank you," said Glendower, inclining his head toward Ronan. He stood, and the rest of them stood as well. His eyes swept the room, took them all in. "Magician, dreamer, mirror. I should like to kiss each of you goodnight."

Ronan laughed, a sharp sound ringing through the silence that greeted Glendower's words. Blue began to sputter in outrage, but again, Adam spoke first. "This doesn't bind us."

"I swear it does not," said Glendower. "But you are wise, magician, to be cautious. Lay out your cards, scry into the depths. Listen to your dreams. You will see your path." He stepped around the table, took Adam's chin in his hand, and kissed him.

Blue's stomach churned oddly. She had become used to Ronan and Adam kissing; it was something she saw every day, something that didn't threaten her because she knew they loved her as well, both of them, each in his own way. But it struck her as weirdly wrong to see Gansey, or at least someone who looked like Gansey, kissing Adam. Gansey was her true love. Adam had no right – but then, she had kissed Adam countless times in the past seven years, and so how could she object? And what was it that bothered her, anyway: Adam kissing Gansey, or Gansey kissing Adam? 

It wasn't Gansey, anyway. It was Glendower. And if Adam looked a little breathless and awed as Glendower broke the kiss, that was his business, not hers.

This time, Ronan did not agree. He strode around the table and grabbed Glendower by the shoulder. "My turn."

Again, something in their kiss disturbed her. Ronan took Gansey's mouth – no, it was Glendower, she reminded herself again – in what seemed almost a predatory way. But as she watched, the dynamic changed. Glendower's arms reached around Ronan, pulling him in tight, and Ronan – melted, there was no other word for it. His tight grip on Glendower's shoulder loosened, his fingers splaying across Glendower's upper arm, sliding down and then up again in a desperate caress. She could hear his soft, breathy moans as he pressed his body against Glendower's. When they moved apart their gazes remained locked together for a timelessly long moment.

"Sleep well, dreamer," said Glendower, finally. Ronan looked away.

And that was weird, too, because Blue had never known Ronan to back down first from anything. She had a sudden, desperate urge to run; to head out the front door and go tearing down the streets of Charlottesville, to just get away. Her comfortable home had turned into an uncertain haven. The two men she loved were unfathomable strangers. And the third...

"Jane," he said softly. "Will you kiss me goodnight?"

That gave her the strength she needed, and she moved to him and looked up into his face. Gansey's face. She hardened her heart. "I told you not to call me that," she said, and she reached up and curved her hand around his neck and pulled him down to her.

From Adam's and Ronan's reactions, she had half expected literal electricity; something profound, something earth-shaking. An epiphany. It wasn't, quite. It was simply that she was kissing Gansey's lips again, and the seven years that had passed between that time in the cave in Cabeswater and this moment in her Charlottesville dining room evaporated into nothingness. She was in the cave again, kissing a shaking Gansey for the first and last time. She was sixteen again, falling in love against her will. Her mother sat in front of her, cards spread on the reading room table; the Page of Cups burned bright against the fan of colorful suits and trumps, and she was being told yet again that if she kissed her true love, he would die.

She was kissing him. That was the only constant, the only truth. She was kissing him, in the cave and in her house, and he was dying, and he was alive.

He was Glendower.

He was Gansey.

* * *

"Well," said Blue, "that was freaky."

Adam, who was already in bed with his cards laid out across the bedspread, swept up the cards and began to lay them out again. "Our lives used to be freakier than that. I think if we hadn't lived without Cabeswater for the past seven years, we wouldn't have thought anything of it."

"Of what?" she demanded. "Of a dead Welsh king who looks like our best friend showing up at our house and turning our world upside down? Because the only reason he can do that now is because of what happened seven years ago. He took Cabeswater away! He took our magic away!"

"And now he brought it back," said Ronan, behind her. He closed the door behind him as he came into the room.

Blue turned to stare at him. "What do you mean, brought it back?"

"When Glendower kissed us. Didn't you feel it?"

"I felt _something_ , anyway."

Ronan grinned, reached out and drew her to him. "Not just that, Mags." He hadn't called her that in years. He leaned down to kiss her, and his lips felt the same as always to her; it was only Ronan, solid and strong. If there was magic transmitted between them, it was only the ordinary magic of love. He released her and moved to the other side of the bed, then began taking off his clothes. "I felt –well, I guess it was like I tasted Cabeswater on him. I could feel the forest inside him, if you get my meaning. It was reaching out to me, calling to me. Calling my name."

"Greywaren," breathed Adam. His face held that same look of wonder that he'd had when Glendower had kissed him. He had almost finished laying down his cards, and held the rest of the deck loosely in his hand. The last card fluttered down to the bed as though, forgotten by Adam, it had decided to fly down to the spread on its own. It landed precisely in its proper position in the spread, though among the turned-up cards it alone lay face down.

"Gansey tastes like mint," she said. "Not like Cabeswater."

"He's not Gansey."

"Yes, he is." When both of them looked at her, she shook her head, frustrated. It wasn't something she could explain in words. "Didn't you feel it? That Gansey was in there, somehow, trying to get out?"

"No," said Ronan, at the same time as Adam said, "Maybe." They both looked at Adam. He flipped over the last card. _Judgement_. Rebirth and reawakening. Could it mean, wondered Blue, that Gansey had reawakened as Glendower, and that what she had sensed was just what he used to be? Or did it suggest that Glendower could reawaken as Gansey again, restore him as he was before?

"Maybe," Adam repeated, studying the card. Then he swept up the layout and squared the deck, handed it to Ronan. "Put this away for me?"

"Fucking magician," said Ronan, with unconcealed affection. He took the deck from Adam and slid it into the drawer of the bedside table.

"I was."

"You are." 

"Maybe," conceded Adam. "I'm seeing things in the shadows. Hearing things. It's like the old days, when Cabeswater wanted to get my attention. But I can't quite make them out."

"Not yet." Ronan pulled off his shirt and dropped it to the floor. He always slept in the nude; or at least, whenever the three of them were together, he was nude. Blue was used to it by now. Adam always wore boxer shorts. Blue's sleeping attire ranged from an oversized t-shirt with BUTTE MT (it was from the Salvation Army thrift store; she had never been there) on it, to a filmy black nightdress with spaghetti straps and lace at the mid-thigh hem that Ronan and Adam had given her for her birthday a few years before. Tonight, after some deliberation, she had chosen a flannel pajama set, pants and camisole in pale lavender, patterned with little black skulls. 

Ronan got into the bed on his side, on Adam's right. Adam tugged on the cover to turn it down, and Blue slid into the bed next to him. He kissed them each in turn, first Blue, then Ronan. 

"The circle closes," murmured Blue.

Adam turned sharply back to her. "What?"

For some reason his reaction caught her by surprise. "It's just – it's like we passed around a kiss. Ronan to me to –" 

"No," said Adam. His voice trembled with a strange urgency. "What you said. I mean, yes, we always do that, but why did you say that, exactly?"

She frowned. What _had_ she said? And then an icy finger traced the bumps on her spine, one by one, as she remembered. "It's what Glendower said that day. In the cave."

"When we woke him."

"When _you_ woke him," said Ronan. "And he killed Noah. Un-un-deaded him, whatever."

"Noah was tired of being dead," she said. That's what she had told herself afterward, when she had tried to figure out exactly what had happened.

"Gansey wanted that to be the favor, you know. To bring him back to life." He laughed humorlessly. "And we wanted the favor to be Gansey's life. That asshole Noah just had to screw it all up." The pain in Ronan's voice was nearly tangible. He had been as close to Noah as any of them.

"I wonder what would have happened if Noah hadn't gone," Blue said. "Could Gansey...well, do you think he might have lived?"

Adam shook his head. "Gansey was tied to Glendower. He would have died seven years before that, but Noah's sacrifice gave him more time. Enough time to find Glendower and wake him."

"We know all this," grumbled Ronan. "We've been over it."

"But now we know more. Or at least, Glendower has given us more clues. And we need to figure out what we're going to do about him."

"Besides," added Blue, "it's not even nine o'clock. Too early to go to sleep. We might as well, right?"

"I can think of other things I'd rather do." Ronan's lips curved into a predatory smile, and his hand disappeared under the covers. From Adam's sudden intake of breath, Blue could guess exactly what that hand was doing.

"Lech. And you're avoiding the issue."

"Mmm," said Adam, neither confirmation nor denial. He stretched and shifted, pressing his back against Ronan's chest. "Actually, I think it's a good idea."

"You would." It sounded like a terrible idea. Glendower was downstairs. They had to come up with something. Fooling around would only be a distraction.

Ronan smirked at her over Adam's shoulder. "Come on, babe. You heard what Parrish said."

Adam reached out to pull her to him, and after a moment's resistance, she allowed it. "Seriously," he murmured into her ear, when her body was tight against his. "I think this is what we're supposed to be doing. Getting close to each other. Remembering what we are to each other. Thinking about what's at stake, and Ronan, don't stop doing that." Ronan laughed, dark and wicked, and Blue felt his hand slide briefly over the back of hers, where it rested on Adam's hip just above the waistband of his boxers. He gave her hand a squeeze, one co-conspirator to another, then went back to whatever it was that Adam didn't want stopped.

She let out a breath. It did feel good, being held against Adam's chest, and when Ronan had squeezed her hand, there was _something_ that shot through her, a faint tingle of energy. Like it wasn't just her, but all of them that were the battery, and they were powering up something important. Or maybe she was just being her mirror self, reflecting the love that Adam and Ronan poured into her and into each other, adding her own, making it grow. She reached across Adam to touch Ronan, and felt it again, just for a moment. She met Adam's eyes, saw that he felt it too.

"Okay," she whispered. "Okay." 

She wriggled away from him and slipped off her pajamas, dropping them next to the bed. When she moved back, Adam had turned toward Ronan, and so she snuggled up to his back while he and Ronan were kissing, slipping a hand down to curve around his butt while she nuzzled into the back of his neck. She could feel that he'd taken his boxers off as well; now they were all naked.

It was a complicated dance, but by this time they'd been practicing the steps for several years, and it had become easier to negotiate. Still, it was no less exciting than the first thrilling time they'd come together in one bed. Blue could feel the muscles in Adam's back and shoulders shifting against her breasts as he stroked Ronan, and Ronan's face, twisting in pleasure as he came into Adam's hands, was a wonder and a joy and a mystery solved, the opening of a secret door nobody could enter but the three of them. It never failed to arouse her, and it never failed to awake a kind of humbled awe in her, that she could be part of this, that they had made it work, the three of them.

 _Thinking about what's at stake_ , Adam had said. Their relationship was a three-legged stool, stable and comfortable. If Gansey had lived, it wouldn't have been the three of them. It wouldn't have been the four of them. It would have been Adam and Ronan, and Gansey and Blue, and although that was what she had wanted seven years ago, back in Henrietta, it seemed cruel to her now to have to make that choice. She couldn't give up Adam and Ronan for Gansey. And it wasn't Gansey, anyway; it was Glendower.

Adam rolled back to face Blue and kissed her, long and deep. His hands, the hands that had just made Ronan come, stroked down her sides and took hold of her hips, and he wriggled down the bed kissing a long stripe down her chest and belly. Ronan leaned across, giving her a sweet kiss as well, and clasped her hand with one of his – the other lazily played with Adam's hair – then sat back to watch her come apart under Adam's mouth. 

When her breathing and pulse had slowed to normal and her eyes fluttered back open, Ronan caught her eye and raised an eyebrow. She nodded, and when he pushed Adam over onto his back between them, she pulled him up toward her to lay his head in her lap.

"The problem with being in a relationship with you two is that you gang up on me," muttered Adam, but he didn't look as though he particularly minded, especially once Ronan's mouth was on him. 

Blue had to admit that this was true. It had happened in slow steps over the years, with a few shouting matches and crying spells along the way, but it had happened. Now it was rarely only two of them in bed together without the third, and whether it was Blue or Ronan that took Adam in, the other was there to caress and touch and kiss.

Blue stroked Adam's hair, then let her hands wander down his torso. She gave Ronan's tattooed back an encouraging caress before returning to Adam's chest. "You told us we were supposed to get close to each other."

"Yeah," said Adam, closing his eyes and tilting his head back. And then for a long while there was no more talking.

* * *

"I'm not giving this up for anything," Ronan said eventually.

"Not for magic? Infinite wealth of everything you can dream?"

"Fucking accountant," said Ronan, with the same cordial affection he'd said _fucking magician_ less than an hour earlier.

"Economist," corrected Adam. "But you're essentially right. We have to weigh the alternatives, assess them, consider which has the most net positive outcome."

"You can't put a price on love," said Blue.

"Fifty bucks on a streetcorner," said Ronan, and both she and Adam threw their pillows at him.

"That's not love. That's sex, and don't tell me that's how you see this, because Ronan Lynch doesn't lie."

He tossed their pillows back to them. "Like I said. Not giving it up. Not for Glendower. Not for Cabeswater."

"What about for Gansey?" said Blue, and then wished she hadn't. The two of them looked at her, frowning, and she was suddenly acutely aware that Gansey had been _her_ boyfriend, if only for a short time. If only for a single kiss. But their relationship had been building to that moment, secretly and steadily, just as Ronan and Adam had been building theirs. She was the weak link, the short leg of the three-legged stool. 

Adam spoke first. "Good question. What about for Gansey, Blue? Would you give us up?" There was a hard glint in his eye, as though there was a right answer and a wrong answer, and she wasn't sure which answer was which. Did his affection for Gansey diminish his love for her?

"I loved Gansey. And I love you both. It's not one or the other, you know that."

"But would he agree? I mean, look at Glendower. He's a king. He has all the power. It _is_ all or nothing with him. It wouldn't be like this."

Ronan nodded. "Me king, you court. The guy's an asshole. Like I said, not giving it up to be his peon. But if Gansey's in there, that's different."

"So you'd give me up for Gansey," said Blue.

"No!" Adam and Ronan said, simultaneously. Ronan reached out across Adam, touched her hand lightly. "Gansey wouldn't be so selfish as to want you to himself, anyway."

She remembered that last magical autumn, when they were searching for her missing mother. Orla had accused them of all being in love with each other – her and Adam and Ronan and Gansey and Noah – and maybe they had been, a little. Could it happen again, if they got Gansey back? Adam and Ronan had opened up and let her in. They could enlarge their circle to admit Gansey, if he was there. The only question was: would he want to join them?

"Maybe," she finally said. 

" _Is_ Gansey in there?" asked Adam.

"I think so. I don't know." She bit her lip. She'd been so sure, when Glendower had kissed her...but now it all seemed so far away and unreal again. Ronan and Adam in bed with her; that was what was real. Gansey was a mirage, a figure glimpsed at the edge of her her vision just before she turned her head. "Maybe," she said again.

"I know how to find out," said Ronan suddenly, and they both looked at him. "Don't ask me why, okay? But I know." He reached out and turned off the light. "Sweet dreams, children."


	5. Chapter 5

She opened her eyes to Cabeswater, or something very like it. It was a forest, anyway, and something about the trees made her think of Cabeswater. Maybe it was the light, filtered through the thick greenery that seemed lusher than any ordinary forest. A low sound filled her ears, unfamiliar and vaguely menacing, like the flapping of distant wings, the faint buzz of far-off insects. Was this how Cabeswater had been to them, seven years ago? She couldn't quite remember.

"Welcome to my nightmare," said Ronan. The three of them were sprawled on a riverbank as though they'd been transported bodily from their bed. Maybe they had, thought Blue. The moss was spongy and soft beneath them, the softest mattress, and she was in her lavender-and-skull pajamas, Adam in his boxers. Ronan did not look discomfited by his nudity. She looked around in wary interest.

Adam peered up at the branches laced overhead. "Not bad. Reminds me of –"

"Don't say it. It is and it isn't. I haven't been here in seven years, remember."

"This is where you used to get your dream-things?"

"Yeah. I think."

"How about some dream-clothes, then?" said Blue pointedly. "You two are seriously underdressed."

"Look who's talking," said Ronan, but he closed his eyes for a moment and abruptly he was wearing jeans, tight and faded, the kind he wore on weekends when he visited the Barns. 

"Adam, too."

Ronan shrugged. "He can make his own damn clothes."

"You're the dreamer."

"It's a dream, you can do what you want in dreams, right? It's taking stuff out that's the tricky part."

She looked over at Adam, who was already wearing khakis and a crisp button-down shirt. Closing her eyes, she imagined herself in a ballgown, something ridiculous and blue, a pearl-covered bodice and layers of lace.

"Nice," said Adam, as Ronan made a scoffing noise.

"Not very practical, though." The long skirts draped over the bank and trailed in the water. She doubted she could even stand up, let alone walk in the thing. Her flannel pj's were comfy enough, and with a thought she brought them back. "So what do we do now?"

"We follow the path."

"What path?"

Adam pointed to a gap between two of the trees. The forest seemed thinner there, and the pine needles and decaying leaves that covered the forest floor had been swept away in a straight line leading off into the distance. "That path."

As they followed the path, the forest seemed to recede and dim around them. The farther trees became indistinct, reforming into different patterns, the near ones subtly reshaped themselves into straight, smooth columns, until they were, suddenly, no longer in a forest at all but in a huge, ornate room. Blue craned her head, but the ceiling was too high, too far away for her to make out any details. 

"It's a cathedral," said Ronan. His voice was hushed, almost reverent. It seemed appropriate, if very un-Ronan-like. This was a place where you spoke in whispers, if you spoke at all.

It was obvious, when she looked around again: the rows of gleaming wooden pews that had risen out of the understory, the marble columns that had once been trees. Fantastically carved archways connected the crowns of the columns, their edges picked out in gold curlicues. Niches along the walls held marble statues, with fine velvet drapery in darkest blue and maroon hanging between them. And ahead of them, above the altar, a golden light poured through a stained-glass window. The colored panes formed the figure of a man. In one hand he held a sword, the other a scepter; a crown sat on his head.

And around his head stained-glass ravens flew, a dark halo of opaque glass that cast bird-shaped shadows at their feet.

"It's Glendower," said Adam.

Not only was the figure in the stained-glass window clearly a resplendent Glendower; as she looked around them, Blue could see that the various statues in the niches were all also of Owain Glendower, in various poses: sword raised to smite an enemy, head bowed in prayer, hands lifted and turned outward as though to pour out blessings or grant a boon. All around them, Glendower. It was not a comfortable place.

Blue suddenly felt very small and very exposed, a tiny thing in a vast space. "Can he hear us?" she whispered.

"I hope not," said Ronan, but his voice was still only a shade louder than hers. He shook his head. "Damn. What an ego." He sounded almost admiring.

"Well, no surprise," said Adam. "He was the Raven King, the last prince of Welsh blood to rule Britain. That would give anyone an ego trip. I'm sure our minds would show us similarly self-centered."

"We're in his _mind_?" said Blue, horrified.

Adam shrugged. "That's as good a theory as any."

Ronan ran a hand over an intricately-carved rail at the edge of a pew. "Man's got a sense of grandeur, at least. Though the cathedral metaphor is a bit over the top."

"So if this is a cathedral, where does that door go?" Blue pointed to an archway that was nearly hidden in the shadows between two of the niches. Something about it called to her; it seemed uncharacteristically modest among all the ostentation.

"That would be a chapel. Maybe the Lady Chapel, for worship of the Virgin Mary. Or the patron saint of this cathedral."

"Who appears to be Glendower."

"Who is definitely not a saint," Ronan agreed. "So, Lady Chapel."

"I don't think so," said Adam slowly. "You're interpreting things in terms of your religion, and yes, I know, Glendower was Catholic, too. But I don't think this is a chapel." He took a few steps toward the archway. It seemed to gain solidity as he approached, as though before it had been only the idea of a doorway, but now was something real and tangible. There was no door, but the space beyond seemed to hold its own darkness against the light spilling from the stained-glass Glendower, from the sconces and chandeliers hanging from the cathedral's high ceiling. "I think it's important. I think we should go in."

They all walked slowly down the aisle toward the archway, which continued to look sharper and more defined as they neared, a simple carved shape spanning a darkness that only seemed to deepen. Blue found herself holding her breath as she stepped through. There was an odd wrenching feeling, like the feeling of stepping onto an escalator, like a sudden acceleration. And then she was outside, not in a chapel at all.

It was a churchyard.

She looked around herself. They were on a flagstone path surrounded by weeds and overgrown scrub. Cracked gravestones blackened by lichen surrounded them, thin angular slabs of marble with unreadable names and epitaphs. Enclosing it all was a mossy stone wall. It didn't look like the sort of churchyard that would belong to Glendower's grand cathedral. It did, however, look vaguely familiar.

And then she saw Gansey, stumbling out of the mist toward them. He looked very young to her, frozen in time by his death at eighteen years of age. Seven years had passed for her, and for Ronan and Adam, but not for Gansey. He still looked as he had in Henrietta, his cheeks smooth, his hair rumpled. He wore slacks and a damp Aglionby sweater, as though he'd just stepped out of the Pig after driving back to Monmouth after school on a rainy day. He smelled of mint.

Then he put his fingers to the side of his nose and to his temple, and a sick feeling formed in the pit of her stomach. This wasn't just any churchyard. It was the one on the ley line where they'd reburied Noah, the one she'd been in with Neeve on that St. Mark's Eve nearly eight years ago. Then, as now, she had seen Gansey's figure wandering across the path toward the church, and then, as now, it had seemed to her that he was frighteningly young.

But on St. Mark's Eve she hadn't seen his face. If she had, she would have recognized him in Nino's, instead of having an exasperating conversation with him that had done nothing to improve her opinion of raven boys. But now she could see him. And perhaps he could see her and Adam and Ronan, because his eyes flickered up to her, his young-old eyes, and he gave her a bewildered frown.

"Gansey," said Ronan. Then again, more urgently, louder. "Gansey!" He reached out to shake him, but his hand passed through Gansey's shoulder.

" _Is_ it Gansey?" asked Adam. "Or is it Glendower?"

"It's obviously not Glendower! Just fucking look at him." Ronan's voice seemed to come from seven years ago, spiky and hot with spilled-over anger. Then he pulled his hand back and studied the boy in front of them. "He's cold, like Noah was." 

A ghost, thought Blue, like Noah. Except this was a dream, and if Gansey were a ghost, wouldn't he have appeared to them sometime in the past seven years? 

"Who are you?" Adam asked the figure. "Are you Gansey?"

Gansey moved his head with apparent difficulty, turning from her to look at Adam. He closed his eyes, opened them again. 

"Damn, it's got to be Gansey."

"Or Glendower," said Ronan. 

Blue shook her head. "He's Gansey. Glendower's in there." She jerked her thumb back to indicate the cathedral behind her.

Ronan looked back, then shook his head, a worried expression on his face. "It's gone."

When she turned she saw that the cathedral had disappeared. There was nothing around them but mist. When she turned back to Gansey she could see behind him the vague suggestion of an arched door much less grand than the one they had passed through, set in the dilapidated wall of the old church on the ley line.

"Are you Gansey, or are you Glendower?" said Ronan. The figure looked helplessly at him. His voice rose with anger and frustration. "Who _are_ you?"

There was a long pause. Then: "Gansey," said the figure. His voice was hushed and broken, a despairing sob in the silence.

"Just Gansey? Not Glendower?"

Silence.

"Is that all?" The words came to Blue's lips almost of their own accord. It was what she'd whispered to the spirit she'd seen on St. Mark's Eve, and she couldn't keep herself from saying it again now. She felt as though they were not just in a dream but in a real manifestation of the ley line. Down on the corpse road, the weird place where Neeve had walked when she'd scryed, the line that connected the sacred places of the world. This was more real than the streets of Charlottesville outside the door of their house, more real than Henrietta. This place was at the heart of it all.

Gansey closed his eyes. "That's all there is."

He fell to his knees before them, to the ground and into it, falling into the earth of the graveyard, perhaps into a grave. Blue let out a startled yelp. Ronan put his arm out but again it passed through Gansey's body, which was becoming more transparent as it sunk into the earth.

"Shh!" said Adam. Blue tore her gaze away from Gansey's dissolving body to Adam's face, which was intent and set and turned slightly to the right, as though he was trying to listen to something with his good ear. Then she heard it, too: the flapping of great wings, the buzz of angry insects, a discontented murmur rapidly building in the distance, becoming louder with every moment.

"Into the church," said Ronan. "We should be safe from them there." He started toward the archway. "Come _on_ , people."

"Safe from what?" said Blue. Her heart had started to beat faster, louder. The pulse in her ears hammered out a beat against the approaching flapping and buzzing. Looking back, she couldn't see anything but swirling mist, but she followed Ronan. Adam was a comforting, warm presence behind her.

Then the mist thickened, and the noise built to a scream, and her feet were swept out from under her. She flailed blindly for Ronan's hand but he wasn't there, nothing was there, nothing but wings beating against her skin, pushing her down, and she was falling, falling, falling....

Abruptly she was in a cave. It wasn't Glendower's cave; it was the cave she'd gone through to find her mother, the cave with the mirrored lake which had acted as a big scrying bowl, reflecting her thoughts and fears. When she'd been there in reality, Ronan had been next to her. He'd seen his father, just as she saw her mother. But now Artemus was by her side, his face – like hers, longer and older and male, as though distorted by a ripple in the lake – frowning down at her.

"Blue," he said. "He wasn't wrong. I do love you."

The terror she'd felt a moment before was instantly replaced by a brittle anger. She straightened. "You don't know me." It was what she'd said to Glendower, and just saying the words again made the resentment bubble back up to the surface. "You weren't there when I grew up, and you barely met me before leaving again. You abandoned us as fast as you can when Glendower called you. And by the way, " she said, feeling mean and petty and not caring much, "Mom married Dean Allen – you remember him? The guy she was dating when you came back? _He_ stuck around, unlike you. _He_ makes her happy. We don't need you any more."

"Good," he said. "She deserves happiness." 

Blue couldn't say anything to that. 

"What about you, Blue? Are you content with your life?" His voice was unexpectedly gentle, and she balled her hands into fists so she wouldn't cry.

"Yes," she said, her voice firm. "Yes, I am."

"Without Gansey?" His eyes bored into hers, and she couldn't look away. 

"Gansey's dead."

"You know that's not precisely true."

"Okay, he's stuck inside Glendower's head somehow. You think that makes it better?"

Artemus sighed and sat on a bench she hadn't noticed behind them. There hadn't been a bench in the real cave. He patted the space next to him and she plopped down next to him. Their reflections in the lake sat, too. His reflection wore armor and robes, like Glendower had when they'd woken him, even though the man next to her wore blue jeans and a white button-down shirt. Her reflection wore the absurd blue ballgown she'd imagined when she had first entered the dream. She looked down at her lap: black skulls on lavender flannel.

"You are right to be wary," he told her. "Kings are not like other men. They have little regard for the lives they touch. Or the lives they take."

"Your life." She remembered Glendower's emotionless face, when he'd practically admitted to killing Artemus and Gwenllian. Using his resources, he'd said, as though he had meant toilet paper or gasoline, not actual human people.

"My life was never important. I don't belong in your time. I was only here for one reason."

"Yeah," she said. "Glendower."

"No, Blue. You."

She snorted. "Funny way you had of showing it."

"That's why I'm trying to make it up to you now. I was Owain Glyndŵr's sworn liege-man. My life was his to do with as he chose. But your life is not." He gave her a faint smile. "It may surprise you to know this, but I am disturbed by this."

"Can't imagine why."

He took her hands in his. His hands were cool but not cold, and they were tangible, solid, reassuring. "Because you are the daughter of my body, and my true legacy to the world. And you should not need to bow to the whim of a king who died long before you were born. I will aid you as I can. You have my word."

"Okay," she said dubiously. "So do you have any suggestions as to how we might keep this from happening?"

Dropping her hands, he turned his head to gaze into the depths of the cave. "Time is a mirrored lake, or so your mother once told me."

"My mother has some weird ideas."

"Your mother knows more than most people. And she's right about time. It is not necessarily an ordered line, one thing happening after another. It is not always clear which is cause and which is effect."

He was making no sense. She wondered if she should tell him that. Maybe she was just too stupid to figure it out. "So, um. Which is the cause and which the effect?"

He nodded as though she'd said something profound. "Exactly. The image in the mirror looks like the object being reflected. But perhaps it is the image that is the true thing, and the object that is the reflection. Your power, Blue, is the ability to determine which it is. To break the true thing away from the mirror."

_Mirror magic is nothing to mirrors._

She frowned. "Are you saying that Glendower is a reflection of Gansey?"

"I am saying that time is a circle, and that cause and effect are reflections of each other. Or as your cousin says, what goes around goes around." His hand described a circle in the air in front of him. Below them, his armored reflection did the same.

"Comes around," Blue said. "What goes around comes around. It's a saying." A trite and stupid saying, and it did not surprise her at all that Orla had said it to Artemus. "It just means that what you do has consequences." As if all of them didn't know that by now.

He nodded. "Even better. What goes around comes around, yes." His hand moved around again in its air-circle. "And it will go around until you stop the cycle."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

He smiled gently at her, as if he really did love her. "By breaking the mirror." And with that, he rose to his feet and dove into the lake.

She gave a startled cry, putting out a hand to stop him – the lake had been only inches deep, hadn't it? He'd bash his head on the bottom, end up paralyzed in a wheelchair if he didn't kill himself – and then she reminded herself that this was a dream, and he was already dead. But it didn't matter; she was too slow, anyway. Her fingers didn't even brush his body. She watched as he merged with his reflection, jeans disappearing into metal plate, all of it dissolving into ripples that spread outward from the spot where he'd jumped in. The ripples rocked her own reflection and kept going, to the edges of the lake, to the walls of the cave, and suddenly everything was ripples and she was _in_ the lake, she was underwater and couldn't breath, her arms flailing desperately, reaching for the surface –

* * *

With a gasp, she woke up. The windows were gray with the thin light of dawn. Next to her, Adam and Ronan were clawing out of their own dreams, panting and graceless.

"Jesus fuck," said Ronan.

"Yeah," muttered Adam. He was still breathing hard; they all were. Slowly the light strengthened, the morning asserting its power over the fleeing dark. 

"So," Adam said, after a long moment. "That was Gansey. It was what he said on the tape." He turned to Blue. His bleary eyes bored into her. "That was what he did, Blue, wasn't it. What you saw back when it all started, when you were there with your aunt."

She nodded. "With Neeve, yeah. I can't believe you remember."

"There are some things you don't forget," he said somberly. "Anyway, Persephone reminded me." She stared at him, and he clarified: "After the storm of bees came, I mean. When I could see again, she was there."

"You saw Persephone?" A vague jealousy tugged at her heart. She'd loved Persephone, too; more than she'd loved the father who had been only a name, a joking nickname, the wave of a hand and a shrug and a change of subject. Why hadn't it been Persephone with her, to tell her what to do? For all her odd habits, she couldn't have been any more elliptical than Artemus had been.

"Yeah," said Adam. "We were at this place she liked me to go with her sometimes, this general store up on the ridge."

"I know the place. The one with the rocking chairs, right?"

He nodded. "She told me to zoom out. To look at the big picture. Which is what she's always told me." Behind him, Ronan snorted softly, but he ignored it and went on. "She said that I needed to look at everything as a whole. That Gansey was where he always had been, and that we knew it. That you – she meant you, Blue – could find him."

"I don't know anything," she said, perplexed.

He reached out a hand to hers, and his warm fingers twined with hers. He tilted his head back to lean against Ronan's chest. "Three is a strong number. She said that to me once, I mean, not this time. Three is a stable number. Four is difficult, she said. But it's possible, if we can find the way. And she said she'd help us."

"Artemus said he'd help, too." She told Adam and Ronan what Artemus had said, and what he'd done. "I think we have to break the mirror to set Gansey free."

Adam shuddered. "Do we have to go back to that cave?"

"I don't think so," said Blue. It had come to her when she'd watched Artemus disappear under the water, a perfectly clear vision. What comes around, goes around. Who would have believed it would be _Orla_ , of all people, who would give her the key?

She started to explain, but like most dream ideas, it started to sound more and more ridiculous as she went on, and she couldn't quite remember how it was all supposed to fit together in the end. Finally she trailed off apologetically and waved a hand around. "Something like that. The details are getting kind of hazy."

Ronan shook his head. "First, we could never pull that off, and second, how is that going to get us Gansey back?"

"I don't know. I don't know if it will. It just fits with what we know. And it makes sense. Well, it made sense in the dream, anyway." 

"I think it makes sense, too," said Adam unexpectedly. "Magic likes order. It likes things to be done in the right way, at the proper time. That's what rituals are all about. Or like me having to move stones to get them in the right places for Cabeswater."

"So?"

"Glendower doesn't belong here, in this place or in this time. Gansey does. The ley line knows that. Cabeswater will help us." Then he frowned. "I mean, if Cabeswater will talk to us again. If we can still tap the magic we used to have."

"We have it again," said Ronan, and the two of them turned to look at him. His face seemed oddly luminescent, or maybe it was a trick of the pale morning light. "When you were talking to Persephone, and Blue was with Artemus. I saw my father."

"What did he say?"

Ronan laughed once, harshly. The light under his skin vanished. "None of your business, Parrish."

"Don't be a shithead. We need this."

"I know." He sighed, scrunched down under the covers. "Yeah, he said he'd help me. Help us. And he told me that I needed to grab onto what I wanted with both hands. It was all mine, if only I would take it." 

"Well, it was a good thing you didn't grab onto Gansey in that dream. God knows what you would have pulled out."

Ronan let himself flop back onto the mattress, away from them both. His mouth curved in an ironic half-smile. "Oh, I did." 

"What?" Blue's heart started pounding. She'd seen Ronan's hand pass through the dream-Gansey; hadn't that been enough to warn him off?

"Then you _don't_ have the magic," said Adam decisively. "Since he's not here. Nor, I'm happy to say, are any night terrors or monsters or other horrible things."

"I have the magic," said Ronan, and he held out his hand, curled in a fist. Slowly, dramatically, he opened it. "We have the magic."

In his palm was one slightly-crushed mint leaf.

* * *

"So, supposing we want to take you up on your offer," said Adam. "What do we need to do?" 

Glendower looked across the breakfast table at him. His smile was remarkably smug, thought Blue, though the effect was ruined by the bit of yogurt clinging to the edge of his upper lip. "You've agreed to join me, then?"

"Not necessarily," Blue broke in. "We just want to know what it entails."

"We go to Cabeswater. We form a circle. The magician will know the ritual."

"I will?"

"You will. You must have felt the magic flowing again. Bringing you strength, bringing you power."

Adam shrugged. "I thought I felt something. Hard to tell."

In fact he'd been late to breakfast, trying to coax that tentative connection he'd felt the previous night into full flower. Blue had told Glendower, when he'd asked, that Adam was still in the bathroom.

But Glendower nodded. "You've missed the magic. All of you – Ronan Lynch, did you dream?"

Ronan stabbed his spoon into his own bowl of yogurt and granola. "I might have."

Glendower's smile grew broader. Blue wanted to punch him right in the yogurt. Ronan had been right; this guy had an ego the size of Wales. But, she reminded herself, that was a good thing. He'd be thinking of what he could get from them, what they could do from him. Not what they might do on their own.

"Well," she said brightly, "it's a good thing today's Saturday and we all have the day off. What do you say, boys? Shall we drive to Cabeswater?"

It had to be the Pig, of course, which they only took out on special occasions due to its terrible gas mileage, not to mention the constant risk of a breakdown. She held her breath when Ronan offered Glendower the keys, let it out when Glendower shook his head. Blue had been pretty sure that he would rather be chauffeured than take the wheel, but it was reassuring to see him decline.

It was strange, though, to see a man who looked like Gansey in the shotgun seat, rather than driving. A wave of nostalgia swept through Blue, almost palpable: the sticky slide of the upholstery against her back, the muted roar of the engine, the smell of gasoline and rubber as they thumped down the road. If Ronan had turned the stereo on, she was certain it would have been the Murder Squash song that would be playing. Noah's cold hand would be playing with her hair...she missed him terribly, a sudden aching pain in her heart. She reached for Adam's hand.

Adam was murmuring under his breath. She didn't think Glendower could hear it – it was a strain for her to hear Adam's quiet voice over the road noise. Even right next to him, she could only make out one word in five. Anyway, Glendower was talking, too, something about kings and princes, about bending time and traveling on light. She tried not to listen to him. She tried not to listen to Adam, either, just in case it would make a difference.

"What are you doing?"

Blue looked up, startled. She had been looking out the window, thinking mirror thoughts. Glendower had turned in his seat and was looking directly at Adam.

_Tell him something_ , Blue thought desperately. _Tell him anything. Not the truth._

Adam shot her a sideways glance that made her suddenly wonder if telepathy was part of the whole magic deal, then looked up at Glendower. "Practicing with the magic. Feeling the ley line. It's been a while. And if I'm supposed to be doing a ritual, I'd better get my feet under me."

Glendower smiled. "Hard to resist, isn't it. I knew you, of all people, would understand what we can be together."

He was like the creepy uncle in a horror movie, Blue decided as he turned his attention back to Ronan, and it was worse because he wore Gansey's face and Gansey's body. He was so unlike Gansey that she wondered how it was that she hadn't seen it immediately. She should have known him for who he was (or at least for who he wasn't) the instant he rang the doorbell. 

Finally, Ronan turned off the state highway and started along the maze of narrow country roads that led to Cabeswater. They'd been on the road for nearly two hours, and Blue hoped it had been long enough.

Adam leaned forward. "Turn left up here."

"No, straight ahead," said Glendower, but Ronan had already turned. This road was even smaller than the last one, the asphalt bumpy with patches and holes that hadn't been patched. The forest was thick with underbrush, and snow clung to the evergreens in small patches where it had not yet melted. Roots spread across the narrow gravel shoulder like tentacles. 

"Shortcut," said Ronan.

The road under the car changed from patched asphalt to gravel and then to dirt. It wasn't the road ahead of them; it was the road _under the car_ , changing as they drove. The snow on the trees seemed to flicker into flowers, then back to snow. The bare branches flashed orange and green leaves. 

Glendower turned again to pin Adam with his sharp gaze. "What have you been doing, magician?"

"Finding the way."

His voice was thick with outrage. "You have been unwinding time!"

"Cabeswater does that sometimes," said Blue. She remembered walking through the forest with Gansey and Ronan and Adam, watching all the seasons pass in a few minutes. This was like that, but at a far faster pace, the years rolling back second by second. The road was only a narrow track now, blurred branches of foliage scraping the Camaro's roof.

Glendower transferred his glare to her. " _You_ have done it."

"I can't do anything," she informed him. "I'm a dud. No psychic powers at all."

"Another left," said Adam.

Ronan turned the wheel, and they broke out of the forest into a clearing.

_Yes_ , thought Blue with deep satisfaction.

"Stop the car." Glendower's commanding voice rang out like the churchbells of St. Agnes, but Ronan was already letting the Pig coast to a stop at the edge of the lake. Not the mirrored lake in the depths of the cavern system; this was the squarish, ugly lake on Cabeswater's northern edge, the one that had been there when Cabeswater had not been. The shifting seasons had stopped at winter. A narrow rim of crinkled ice clung to the lake's edges. 

Lakes held a lot of latent heat. Blue had learned that in her ecology classes, that water cooled and heated more slowly than the air around them. In the cold air, the water vapor coming from the surface of the lake turned to steam, covering it with a thin layer of mist that curled into the air. It looked forbidding; it looked like a mysterious source of magic. It was strange to think that she'd swum in it that summer, so many years ago.

As soon as they'd stopped moving, Glendower pushed open the door and sprung out. Angrily he stabbed the lever that moved the seat forward, then he grabbed Adam's shirtfront, pulling him out of the Camaro. "What have you done to the ley line?"

"What there is," whispered Adam, "came to my need."

The words Glendower had said to them the day before; the words with which he had excused himself for the deaths of Artemus and Gwenllian. He must have noticed the mockery, for his face grew even redder, his knuckles white on Adam's shirt.

"Let go of him, asshole!" Ronan scrambled out of his seat and vaulted across the hood, pulling Glendower off Adam. He hadn't killed the motor, though, and the key was still in the ignition. Blue slipped out behind him and watched the action from the comparative safety of the other side of the car.

"You _dare_ lay hands on me?"

" _I_ dare? It's you who laid hands first, Mr. Raven King."

"You –"

Ronan leaned close. He was taller than Glendower, by a fraction, bright with anger, hard and unstoppable. "Shut the fuck up."

Ronan had built an impressive head of steam; it was amazing, Blue thought, that he hadn't hauled off and punched Glendower in the face. Maybe it was the fact that it was Gansey's face staring him down that was giving him pause. 

"You want us to be your court," said Adam, "you ought to treat us with respect." He'd stepped back to lean against the Pig's rear fender, as though Glendower's agitation was none of his concern. He was cool, smooth, much calmer than Ronan. Much calmer than Blue could imagine being. She herself was breathing as hard as if she'd run all the way from Charlottesville. She was tired, a deep fatigue spreading through her whole body, and she wished she could just curl up in the Pig's back seat and go to sleep. It wouldn't surprise her if last night's dream had been worthless as actual sleep. Or maybe it was the battery effect. Maybe Adam, using her energy to bring this place out of the mysteries of Cabeswater, had drained her dry.

_It's not Adam who wants to drain you dry_ , said a voice in her head. 

"Right," she muttered, and forced herself to walk around the Camaro to the others. 

"The ley line's still here," she said. "Under the water."

Glendower turned his furious gaze on her. "This is not my forest."

"The forest is still here." She waved a hand towards the south edge of the lake, past the frozen mud of the field, the steaming water. "Well, it's over there, somewhere."

He frowned at the lake, then turned away. "I have had enough of crossing water," he muttered. 

It seemed to Blue, then, that behind him the layer of white mist on the lake thickened just a fraction, a barely-perceptible increase of density, an almost invisible swelling. Questing tendrils crept out along the lake's edge and slipped up the grassy shore to swirl around their feet and the Pig's wheels. 

She looked toward Adam, who shook his head slightly. None of his doing, then. Ronan was staring at the mist with a fascinated sort of distaste, as though it was something that both intrigued and repelled him. She wondered what it was that he sensed from it. To her, it was just a weird mist. She'd bet her mother would have seen something in it. 

Glendower didn't seem to notice it at all. He let out a long breath and turned to Ronan. "Of course you are right. I should not have treated you that way, nor you, Adam." He inclined his head toward Adam. "You have great power in you, and I understand your desire to explore it, to master it. I promise you, in time you will have the opportunity to learn your power. But now we must go to that part of the road that lives in the Cabeswater forest. Ronan, please drive us there." 

He got into the Pig's passenger seat, and closed the door.

Gansey had apologized to Blue more than once, and she knew what his sincere contrition looked like. This wasn't it. This was more like Gansey in full-on charm mode, trying to convince someone he didn't respect to give him something he wanted. Maybe he'd got that from Glendower.

The muted roar of the Camaro's engine sounded unnaturally loud in the still air. Which is why it was so surprising when she heard a quiet voice saying her name.

"Blue. We are here."

She jerked her head around to see three figures standing behind the Pig. They were translucent, like Noah when he was having a bad day, but it was immediately clear who they were. "Artemus," she breathed. "Persephone." Her eyes blurred with the beginnings of tears. Persephone had looked vaguely ethereal at the best of times; now the cloud of her white hair mirrored the mist around their feet.

"An interesting choice," said Persephone, looking around. "Was this your doing, Blue?"

Blue nodded, her mouth suddenly dry. "But I don't know what happens next."

"Nobody ever does, child."

"Will it work?" asked Adam. His voice cracked a little.

"Well, that depends on what you mean by work."

Glendower rolled the window down. "Come," he said. He sounded as though he was trying not to sound impatient. "Let us go to the ley line."

"All right, then," said the third person, who had to be Niall Lynch. Tall, pale, dark-haired, he looked so much like Ronan it made Blue's heart ache. Then he stepped around to the driver's side of the car, and Blue realized that he looked _exactly_ like Ronan. She whipped her head around; no, Ronan was standing right where he had been, staring at his father – at his double.

The other two followed him, their features fading and shifting, and they were no longer Persephone and Artemus, they were Adam and Blue. Blue watched herself get into the back seat with Adam, as Niall-Ronan got into the front. 

She looked across to where Adam and Ronan – the real Adam and Ronan – stood. She was about to say something, but Adam turned toward her and shook his head emphatically. _Do not interfere._ She almost heard his voice, in his head...but that wasn't Adam, it was....

The engine roared, as though someone had stepped on the accelerator while in neutral. Then it lurched into gear and the Pig jumped forward into the lake, smashing the ice at the water's edge, sinking immediately. The thrum of the engine cut off abruptly. Ripples spread outward, then vanished as the mist rushed in to cover the spot where the car had been. There weren't even any bubbles.

For a long moment, nobody moved or spoke.

It came to Blue, then, what she had made happen. "Oh, God," she whispered into the silence. She thought she might throw up. "Oh, God." 

"As if you even believed. As if God would even care about this." Ronan's voice sounded hollow, empty, like the echo of a slammed door. He rubbed his hands together, blowing on them. "It's too fucking cold to walk to Henrietta."

"Then dream us another Camaro," Blue said viciously. She was cold, too; outside and inside, her skin and her soul. How had she ever thought this was a good idea? How had she not realized how things would unfold, one step after the other, relentlessly, inevitably?

"Oh, right, of course, another fucking Camaro. Don't be an idiot, Blue, I can't just –"

"Shut up," Adam said sharply. "The lake."

They all turned to look. The mist was thinning, disappearing back into the surface of the lake. For one moment, suspended in time, the flat surface was a mirror reflecting the sky above, the clouds, the trees on the far side of the lake. 

_Mirror magic is nothing to mirrors._

The moment broke, and the mirror shook. Small tremors rippled across the surface, distorting the reflected images. The small ripples became large ripples became waves, building and crashing against the shore.

At the center of all the disturbances, a hand broke the surface; then an arm, arcing above the water, slicing into it again in the smooth stroke of a competent swimmer. Two strokes, three. Then the swimmer stopped, his head breaking the surface.

"Gansey," whispered Blue.

"Maybe," said Adam, but she could hear the hope in his voice, more hope than caution.

"Jesus fuck," said Ronan. 

The lake was only waist-deep as the man flailed upright, water streaming from his hair, his shoulders, his sodden shirt and jeans. Awkwardly he strode through the water towards them.

"Jane," he said. His teeth were chattering, his skin bluish. "Jane, I've been – oh, Jesus. Adam, Ronan, what the hell just happened?"

"Gansey," said Blue, and something in her chest burst soundlessly, bubbling up through her body, her arms and legs all tingling with it. It _was_ Gansey. She ran to embrace him, wet clothes and all. Adam's arms came around them both, and then Ronan's arms as well, all of them together, and she wasn't sure if it was lake water or tears on her face, or whose tears they were, because it didn't matter, none of it mattered: Gansey was alive.

"Jesus fuck, Gansey, you're freezing," said Ronan. "Let's get you home."

"Home," said Gansey, softly, sadly. "What's home?"

"Our home," Blue said, though her voice wavered a little. She remembered finding the Pig's hubcap, underwater for years. Were they in the present, or the past? She looked past Gansey's shoulders at the lake. The rim of ice had vanished with the mist, and there wasn't any snow in the trees. It didn't look so much like winter, as it had earlier. Maybe it was early March. Again.

"Better get moving," said Ronan. "It's going to be a long walk." He looked at the lake, frowning. There was no sign of the Camaro.

"It won't," said Adam, and he turned toward the road. 

A moment later, the rest of them heard the sound of a car engine. Ronan frowned at Adam. "That was mystical Cabeswater hearing, not your ears, right?"

"Right," said Adam, as Maura's car appeared at the edge of the forest.

"Seven years," said Blue. She couldn't let go of Gansey's hand. Adam and Ronan were just as close.

"It was like being behind a glass wall. A one-way mirror. I saw it all, but I couldn't...." Gansey's voice broke. 

"You saw us?" said Adam sharply.

Gansey looked at him silently. It seemed to Blue that something of his manner had been stripped away. His confidence, his natural poise that conveyed to everyone that he had the right to do whatever he liked, that he was Gansey, that he was invincible. He was like them, now. Ordinary. Human. 

But he was still Gansey.

"No more mirrors," said Blue. She squeezed his hand. "It's all right. You're with us now."

"I'm with you now," said Gansey, his voice firm. He touched Adam, Ronan, gathered them back in. "All of you."

Maura's car came to a stop at the edge of the lake. The door opened, and she jumped out, her eyes going first to Blue, than to the rest of them. "Oh, thank God. You're all right?"

"We're all right," said Blue. She blinked away tears. "All of us. We're all right now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. I'd love your comments!


End file.
